When Communication Stops Quotes

Remember, no matter the problem, kindness is always the right response. When your child is having a problem, stop, listen, then respond to the need, not the behavior. The behavior can be addressed later, after the need has been met, because only then is the door to effective communication truly open.

When you stop communicating, you become poor.

A rude man tells a women to stop talking too much because she is making noise. A polite man will tell this same woman that she looks so beautiful when her lip are closed. Compare and choose one! Speak politely; but be sure you get to where you are going with your words.

When you do talk to people, share what you are. Stop focusing on all the things that you aren’t. Stop focusing on all of the physical features that you think people won’t like about you. Stop focusing on your inabilities or lack of talent. Instead, focus on those physical features that you know people already love about you. Focus on your abilities and the talents that you do have. You have been blessed with all of the above, and that makes you worth getting to know in my book.

Which is what most of our modern communications amount to, when you stop to think of it; chatter for the sake of chatter.

We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read to themselves. We have an obligation to use reading-aloud time as bonding time, as time when no phones are being checked, when the distractions of the world are put aside. We have an obligation to use the language. To push ourselves: to find out what words mean and how to deploy them, to communicate clearly, to say what we mean. We must not attempt to freeze language, or to pretend it is a dead thing that must be revered, but we should use it as a living thing, that flows, that borrows words, that allows meanings and pronunciations to change with time.

If you’re reading this you’re already blessed, not that you’re receiving something special, it’s more that you have the existence of sight aiding you. Take a moment to be thankful for what you’ve received, and I’m not speaking in the materialistic vain, but rather for what we undervalue. Be grateful for your ability to take that first breath every morning, to place both feet on the ground and stand, be thankful… Be thankful for the people in your life right this very moment, and those that communicate with you via the internet. Be thankful for the time already spent on this planet, and for what’s to come. I’d like you to stop whatever it is you’re doing this very second, and take a moment for self reflection. That unexpected jolt of reality that life hit’s us with during a crisis or when accolades are given is powerful. None of that is happening right now, so this is the time to show gratitude, and share a moment with no one else but you. Just take a moment and be thankful. What am I most thankful for?... I’m most thankful for doing the best I can with what I’ve got, because I’m cradled in blessings.

Emily is talking to Greg about dinner parties, not divorce, but her communication style echoes Celia’s. When she and Greg disagree, her voice gets quiet and flat, her manner slightly distant. What she’s trying to do is minimize aggression—Emily is uncomfortable with anger—but she appears to be receding emotionally.

The basic principle I would like to see communicated to people is the idea that every form of authority and domination and hierarchy has to prove that its justified - it has no prior justification. For instance, when you stop your five year old kid from trying to cross the street, that's an authoritarian situation: it's got to be justified. Well, in that case you can give a justification. But the burden of proof for any exercise of authority is always on the person exercising it - invariably. And when you look, most of the time those authority structures have no justification: they have no moral justification, they have no justification in the interests of the person lower in the hierarchy, or in the interests of other people, or the environment, or the future, or the society, or anything else - they are just there in order to preserve certain structures of power and domination, and the people at the top.

She was a shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.

Free expression is necessary for a peaceful society, but when we create spectacles out of tragic situations, we inadvertently signal that mass murder is an effective means of communication.

A relationship is about commitment, making quality time to spend with each other, keeping lines of communication open, being honest and loyal and respecting each others differences. When one person stops doing this, the future of the relationship is in jeopardy,

In this process of unlearning, in the process of feeling and hearing the plants again, one comes to realize many things. And of these things, perhaps stronger than the others, one feels the pain of the Earth. It is not possible to escape it. One of the most powerful experiences I had of this was the year when I traveled to the Florida panhandle. One day Trishuwa and I decided to go out and make relationship with the plants and offer prayer to them. The place we chose appeared quite lush, with huge trees and thick undergrowth. But as we sat there, a strong anger came from the land and the trees. They had little use for us and told us so in strong language. We spoke with them for a long time and did not cower away from their rage and eventually, as we received their pain and anger, they calmed down a little. They told us that we could do our ceremonies if we wished and that they appreciated the thought but that it would do no good. It was too late for that place, it could not be helped, the land would take its revenge for the damage done to it and nothing would stop it. I wondered then how everyone who lived in the area could just go on with their daily lives when this communication from all the local living things was crying out so loudly. I wondered if anyone else felt this rage and anger.

A number of years ago I had some experience with being alone. For two succeeding years I was alone each winter for eight months at a stretch in the Sierra Nevada mountains on Lake Tahoe. I was the caretaker on a summer estate during the winter months when it was snowed in. And I made some observations then. As time went on I found that my reactions thickened. Ordinarily I am a whistler. I stopped whistling. I stopped conversing with my dogs, and I believe that the subtleties of feeling began to disappear until finally I was on a pleasure-pain basis. Then it occurred to me that the delicate shades of feeling, of reaction, are the result of communication, and without such communication they tend to disappear. A man with nothing to say has no words. Can its reverse be true- a man who has no one to say anything to has no words as he has no need for words? ... Only through imitation do we develop toward originality.

If I had not immersed myself in books, in stories and legends, in newspapers, in reports, if everything communicable had not grown up in me, I should have been a nonentity, a collection of uncomprehended events. (And that might have been a good thing, then I should have thought of something new.) That I can see, that I can hear, are things I do not deserve; but my feelings, those I truly deserve, these herons over white beaches, these wanderers by night, the hungry vagabonds that take my heart as their highroad. I wish I could call out to all those who believe in their unique brains and the hard currency of their thoughts: be of good faith! But these coins which you clink together have been withdrawn from circulation, only you don't know it yet....Admit that when you really pay, with your lives, you do so only beyond the barrier, when you have said farewell to everything that is so dear to you--to landing-places, flying-bases, and only from there do you embark on your own path and your journey from imagined stop to imagined stop, travellers who must not be concerned with arriving.

I Don’t Even Like Him—How Can I Pray for Him? Have you ever been so mad at your husband that the last thing you wanted to do was pray for him? So have I. It’s hard to pray for someone when you’re angry or he’s hurt you. But that’s exactly what God wants us to do. If He asks us to pray for our enemies, how much more should we be praying for the person with whom we have become one and are supposed to love? But how do we get past the unforgiveness and critical attitude? The first thing to do is be completely honest with God. In order to break down the walls in our hearts and smash the barriers that stop communication, we have to be totally up-front with the Lord about our feelings. We don’t have to “pretty it up” for Him. He already knows the truth. He just wants to see if we’re willing to admit it and confess it as disobedience to His ways. If so, He

the basic principle I would like to see communicated to people is the idea that every form of authority and domination and hierarchy, every authoritarian structure, has to prove that it’s justified—it has no prior justification. For instance, when you stop your five-year-old kid from trying to cross the street, that’s an authoritarian situation: it’s got to be justified. Well, in that case, I think you can give a justification. But the burden of proof for any exercise of authority is always on the person exercising it—invariably.

I am, I must confess, an obsessive and superstitious letter-writer. When I am troubled I will write any long letter rather than make a telephone call. This is perhaps because I invest letters with magical power. To desiderate something in a letter is, I often irrationally feel, tantamount to bringing it about. A letter is a barrier, a reprieve, a charm against the world, an almost infallible method of acting at a distance. (And, it must be admitted, of passing the buck.) It is a way of bidding time to stop.

In a world of asynchronous communication, where we are so often buried in our screens, our gaze rooted to the rectangular objects buzzing in our hands, our attention consumed by ephemera, stop and experience this dialogue with my young departed colleague, now ageless and extant in memory.

Hypercritical, Shaming Parents Hypercritical and shaming parents send the same message to their children as perfectionistic parents do - that they are never good enough. Parents often deliberately shame their children into minding them without realizing the disruptive impact shame can have on a child's sense of self. Statements such as "You should be ashamed of yourself" or "Shame on you" are obvious examples. Yet these types of overtly shaming statements are actually easier for the child to defend against than are more subtle forms of shaming, such as contempt, humiliation, and public shaming. There are many ways that parents shame their children. These include belittling, blaming, contempt, humiliation, and disabling expectations. -BELITTLING. Comments such as "You're too old to want to be held" or "You're just a cry-baby" are horribly humiliating to a child. When a parent makes a negative comparison between his or her child and another, such as "Why can't you act like Jenny? See how she sits quietly while her mother is talking," it is not only humiliating but teaches a child to always compare himself or herself with peers and find himself or herself deficient by comparison. -BLAMING. When a child makes a mistake, such as breaking a vase while rough-housing, he or she needs to take responsibility. But many parents go way beyond teaching a lesson by blaming and berating the child: "You stupid idiot! Do you think money grows on trees? I don't have money to buy new vases!" The only thing this accomplishes is shaming the child to such an extent that he or she cannot find a way to walk away from the situation with his or her head held high. -CONTEMPT. Expressions of disgust or contempt communicate absolute rejection. The look of contempt (often a sneer or a raised upper lip), especially from someone who is significant to a child, can make him or her feel disgusting or offensive. When I was a child, my mother had an extremely negative attitude toward me. Much of the time she either looked at me with the kind of expectant expression that said, "What are you up to now?" or with a look of disapproval or disgust over what I had already done. These looks were extremely shaming to me, causing me to feel that there was something terribly wrong with me. -HUMILIATION. There are many ways a parent can humiliate a child, such as making him or her wear clothes that have become dirty. But as Gershen Kaufman stated in his book Shame: The Power of Caring, "There is no more humiliating experience than to have another person who is clearly the stronger and more powerful take advantage of that power and give us a beating." I can personally attest to this. In addition to shaming me with her contemptuous looks, my mother often punished me by hitting me with the branch of a tree, and she often did this outside, in front of the neighbors. The humiliation I felt was like a deep wound to my soul. -DISABLING EXPECTATIONS. Parents who have an inordinate need to have their child excel at a particular activity or skill are likely to behave in ways that pressure the child to do more and more. According to Kaufman, when a child becomes aware of the real possibility of failing to meet parental expectations, he or she often experiences a binding self-consciousness. This self-consciousness - the painful watching of oneself - is very disabling. When something is expected of us in this way, attaining the goal is made harder, if not impossible. Yet another way that parents induce shame in their children is by communicating to them that they are a disappointment to them. Such messages as "I can't believe you could do such a thing" or "I am deeply disappointed in you" accompanied by a disapproving tone of voice and facial expression can crush a child's spirit.

You have to learn when a person has stopped talking, which tells you that it is now time to respond.

Ya live your life like it's a coma So won't you tell me why we'd wanna With all the reasons you give it's It's kinda hard to believe But who am I to tell you that I've Seen any reason why you should stay Matbe we'd be better off Without you anyway You got a one way ticket On your last chance ride Gotta one way ticket To your suicide Gotta one way ticket An there's no way out alive An all this crass communication That has left you in the cold Isn't much for consolation When you feel so weak and old But is home is where the heart is Then there's stories to be told No you don't need a doctor No one else can heal your soul Got your mind in submission Got your life on the line But nobody pulled the trigger They just stepped aside They be down by the water While you watch 'em waving goodbye They be callin' in the morning They be hangin' on the phone They be waiting for an answer When you know nobody's home And when the bell's stopped ringing It was nobody's fault but your own There were always ample warnings There were always subtle signs And you would have seen it comin' But we gave you too much time And when you said That no one's listening Why'd your best friend drop a dime Sometimes we get so tired of waiting For a way to spend our time An "It's so easy" to be social "It's so easy" to be cool Yeah it's easy to be hungry When you ain't got shit to lose And I wish that I could help you With what you hope to find But I'm still out here waiting Watching reruns of my life When you reach the point of breaking Know it's gonna take some time To heal the broken memories That another man would need Just to survive Guns N’ Roses, “Coma” (1991)

Stop just talking... Shut-up and take ACTION! Let your words speak. Remember, when you talk, you’re just communicating with people. When you ACT, you’re communicating with the Universe.

1 The summer our marriage failed we picked sage to sweeten our hot dark car. We sat in the yard with heavy glasses of iced tea, talking about which seeds to sow when the soil was cool. Praising our large, smooth spinach leaves, free this year of Fusarium wilt, downy mildew, blue mold. And then we spoke of flowers, and there was a joke, you said, about old florists who were forced to make other arrangements. Delphiniums flared along the back fence. All summer it hurt to look at you. 2 I heard a woman on the bus say, “He and I were going in different directions.” As if it had something to do with a latitude or a pole. Trying to write down how love empties itself from a house, how a view changes, how the sign for infinity turns into a noose for a couple. Trying to say that weather weighed down all the streets we traveled on, that if gravel sinks, it keeps sinking. How can I blame you who kneeled day after day in wet soil, pulling slugs from the seedlings? You who built a ten-foot arch for the beans, who hated a bird feeder left unfilled. You who gave carrots to a gang of girls on bicycles. 3 On our last trip we drove through rain to a town lit with vacancies. We’d come to watch whales. At the dock we met five other couples—all of us fluorescent, waterproof, ready for the pitch and frequency of the motor that would lure these great mammals near. The boat chugged forward—trailing a long, creamy wake. The captain spoke from a loudspeaker: In winter gray whales love Laguna Guerrero; it’s warm and calm, no killer whales gulp down their calves. Today we’ll see them on their way to Alaska. If we get close enough, observe their eyes—they’re bigger than baseballs, but can only look down. Whales can communicate at a distance of 300 miles—but it’s my guess they’re all saying, Can you hear me? His laughter crackled. When he told us Pink Floyd is slang for a whale’s two-foot penis, I stopped listening. The boat rocked, and for two hours our eyes were lost in the waves—but no whales surfaced, blowing or breaching or expelling water through baleen plates. Again and again you patiently wiped the spray from your glasses. We smiled to each other, good troopers used to disappointment. On the way back you pointed at cormorants riding the waves— you knew them by name: the Brants, the Pelagic, the double-breasted. I only said, I’m sure whales were swimming under us by the dozens. 4 Trying to write that I loved the work of an argument, the exhaustion of forgiving, the next morning, washing our handprints off the wineglasses. How I loved sitting with our friends under the plum trees, in the white wire chairs, at the glass table. How you stood by the grill, delicately broiling the fish. How the dill grew tall by the window. Trying to explain how camellias spoil and bloom at the same time, how their perfume makes lovers ache. Trying to describe the ways sex darkens and dies, how two bodies can lie together, entwined, out of habit. Finding themselves later, tired, by a fire, on an old couch that no longer reassures. The night we eloped we drove to the rainforest and found ourselves in fog so thick our lights were useless. There’s no choice, you said, we must have faith in our blindness. How I believed you. Trying to imagine the road beneath us, we inched forward, honking, gently, again and again.

get nervous about communicating with them because they don’t know me yet, and they don’t know the issues I have. I’m putting all my energy into trying to present myself as normal, which I get into my head about. Whether it’s real or not, I can’t stop imagining that they’re judging me. Which makes it worse. My mind goes blank, and I just . . . I can’t find the words. I freeze up. It’s mortifying when the words won’t come. It’s so much easier to pretend I have a personality where I don’t have any words for anyone, that I don’t care to, rather than not being able to find them.

The tragedy of her father's absence had never actually been an acutely tragic event for her. As she grew up and came to understand the world, he was a part of it. An already dead part. His absence was the landscape of her family. Increasingly, as the years went on, she didn't really know what she was missing, but that didn't stop her from missing it. She fixated on him. She prayed to him. She attempted to research him, found obscure publications of his in scientific journals. The language was so formal, she could barely understand it. But she told herself, This is familiar. This is mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She thought, There was a feeling he had, when he wrote this, when he was alive. He communicated it to me, even though everyone who reads this article only gets a lot of information about this scientific test subject, and his reaction to all these oils. She dreamed her father was still out there [ . . . though] her belief that her father was still living did not stop her from telling stories about his death.

When boundaries are violated, they can hurt tremendously because we feel used, disrespected and devalued by those who try to take from us. As a result, a violation of boundaries is often experienced as an attack or assault.

When you yearn to create positive change, stop focusing on your old stories. If you hope to transform your life from the inside out and become a new improved version of your former self, refocus on what you want rather than what you don’t

The great thing about redirecting is that if you miss the mark and miss your goal, you can simply change course. When you are heading down a certain path, and feel like you may be heading the wrong way, stop, turn back, redirect, or ask for directions.

Poisonous people do not deserve your time. To think otherwise is masochistic. The best way to approach a potential break is simple: Confide in them honestly but tactfully and explain your concerns. If they bite back, your conclusions have been confirmed. Drop them like any other bad habit. If they promise to change, first spend at least two weeks apart to develop other positive influences in your life and diminish psychological dependency. The next trial period should have a set duration and consist of pass-or-fail criteria. If this approach is too confrontational for you, just politely refuse to interact with them. Be in the middle of something when the call comes, and have a prior commitment when the invitation to hang out comes. Once you see the benefits of decreased time with these people, it will be easier to stop communication altogether.

—so much more opportunity now." Her voice trails off. "Hurrah for women's lib, eh?" "The lib?" Impatiently she leans forward and tugs the serape straight. "Oh, that's doomed." The apocalyptic word jars my attention. "What do you mean, doomed?" She glances at me as if I weren't hanging straight either and says vaguely, "Oh …" "Come on, why doomed? Didn't they get that equal rights bill?" Long hesitation. When she speaks again her voice is different. "Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like—like that smoke. We'll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You'll see." Now all this is delivered in a gray tone of total conviction. The last time I heard that tone, the speaker was explaining why he had to keep his file drawers full of dead pigeons. "Oh, come on. You and your friends are the backbone of the system; if you quit, the country would come to a screeching halt before lunch." No answering smile. "That's fantasy." Her voice is still quiet. "Women don't work that way. We're a—a toothless world." She looks around as if she wanted to stop talking. "What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine." "Sounds like a guerrilla operation." I'm not really joking, here in the 'gator den. In fact, I'm wondering if I spent too much thought on mahogany logs. "Guerrillas have something to hope for." Suddenly she switches on a jolly smile. "Think of us as opossums, Don. Did you know there are opossums living all over? Even in New York City." I smile back with my neck prickling. I thought I was the paranoid one. "Men and women aren't different species, Ruth. Women do everything men do." "Do they?" Our eyes meet, but she seems to be seeing ghosts between us in the rain. She mutters something that could be "My Lai" and looks away. "All the endless wars …" Her voice is a whisper. "All the huge authoritarian organizations for doing unreal things. Men live to struggle against each other; we're just part of the battlefield. It'll never change unless you change the whole world. I dream sometimes of—of going away—" She checks and abruptly changes voice. "Forgive me, Don, it's so stupid saying all this." "Men hate wars too, Ruth," I say as gently as I can. "I know." She shrugs and climbs to her feet. "But that's your problem, isn't it?" End of communication. Mrs. Ruth Parsons isn't even living in the same world with me.

Singing is magic. When I sing, I own who I am. I can communicate purely. When you sing you stop using the language of “Hi, how are you…” You’re able to say things that are much more profound. Singing takes me to a mystical place where language doesn’t matter anymore, where anything is possible.

There are times – they mark the danger point for a political system – when politicians can no longer communicate, when they stop understanding the language of the people they are supposed to be representing. The politicians of Weimar’s parties were well on the way to reaching that point in 1930.

When we don’t qualify, it may be the perfect time to ask, “Do I really want it?” If you’re dedicated to making it happen, the only way you can fail is to stop trying. Be creative. Be constructive. Re-qualify. Never give up if it is for something you deeply, passionately, and enthusiastically desire

The more pressing question, of course, is how we can communicate our love after kids keep acting up even when we think they ought to know better. (We’ve certainly told them enough times!) Here it’s common to assume that they’re “testing limits.” This is a very popular phrase in the discipline field and it’s often used as a justification for parents to impose more, or tighter, limits. Sometimes the assumption that kids are testing us even becomes a rationalization for punishing them. But my suspicion is that, by misbehaving, children may be testing something else entirely—namely, the unconditionality of our love. Perhaps they’re acting in unacceptable ways to see if we’ll stop accepting them.

Sometimes what we imagine is much worse than reality. When people stop communicating their feelings to each other it becomes much easier to hold back. When something happens that you'd usually tell your wife or husband it becomes difficult because you're no longer talking as openly as you once were. Soon you start to withhold more and more from one another, holding less intimate conversations, until eventually you begin to appear secretive, hostile even. Passive recipients of each others behaviour, rather than active partners. One day you wake up full of resentment and bitterness. You want your wife to pay, take responsibility for their part in making you feel this way. You want to hurt them.

Toraf nudges him from his thoughts. "You know whose advice I need?" He nods toward the gigantic house behind them. "Rachel's." "Actually, you don't," Galen says, standing. He reaches a hand down to help his friend. "Why's that?" "Rachel's expertise lies more along the lines of communication. You won't need to worry about communication when Rayna finds out you're already mated." "We're what?" They both turn to Rayna who has stopped mid-stride in the sand. The emotions on her face change from surprise to full-blown murderous rage. "You're gonna pay a special price for that, minnow!" Toraf calls before he hits the water. Galen grins as Rayna slices through the waves in blood-thirsty pursuit. Then he heads for the house to talk to Rachel.

Why do some people, take Christ, for example, seem to hear more of Your communication than others? Because some people are willing to actually listen. They are willing to hear, and they are willing to remain open to the communication even when it seems scary, or crazy, or downright wrong. We should listen to God even when what’s being said seems wrong? Especially when it seems wrong. If you think you are right about everything, who needs to talk with God? Go ahead and act on all that you know. But notice that you’ve all been doing that since time began. And look at what shape the world is in. Clearly, you’ve missed something. Obviously, there is something you don’t understand. That which you do understand must seem right to you, because “right” is a term you use to designate something with which you agree. What you’ve missed will, therefore, appear at first to be “wrong.” The only way to move forward on this is to ask yourself, “What would happen if everything I thought was ‘wrong’ was actually ‘right’?” Every great scientist knows about this. When what a scientist does is not working, a scientist sets aside all of the assumptions and starts over. All great discoveries have been made from a willingness, and ability, to not be right. And that’s what’s needed here. You cannot know God until you’ve stopped telling yourself that you already know God. You cannot hear God until you stop thinking that you’ve already heard God. I cannot tell you My Truth until you stop telling

For those who have sex, these ideas—breaking the binary of yes and no, norms that encourage discussion—must be combined with always checking in. Checking in doesn’t mean stopping for a five-minute discussion in legalese. It requires paying attention to—and wanting to pay attention to—all forms of information. Nonverbal communication in particular is important because social pressures can make it hard for some to speak up and verbally say no. “I’m autistic and people are always telling me that 95 percent of communication is nonverbal and tell me it’s important to make efforts to understand that,” says Lola Phoenix, a writer in London. “And then when it comes to consent it’s suddenly like, ‘Why didn’t they say something? No one is a mind reader!’ That’s really hypocritical.

Do you think we should put terrorists' opinions in the media?" "Yes," replied the Avatar. "The most basic need of any human being is the need to communicate. If you shut down the nonviolent channels of communication, people will find alternate channels.Terrorism is communication disguised as warfare. If you treat it as war, you cannot stop it. When you treat it as communication, you have a chance to replace it with something less lethal.

Mike sounded dismissive of Western communication styles, but he admitted that he sometimes wished he could be noisy and uninhibited himself. “They’re more comfortable with their own character,” he said of his Caucasian classmates. Asians are “not uncomfortable with who they are, but are uncomfortable with expressing who they are. In a group, there’s always that pressure to be outgoing. When they don’t live up to it, you can see it in their faces.

When the train stopped at both those stations, lots of passengers got off, but there was no reaction whatsoever from anyone to my turning around to open the windows. No one said a thing, everyone was so quiet. No response, no communication. I lived in America for a year, and believe me, if the same thing had happened in America there would have been a real scene. With everyone shouting, “What’s going on here?” and coming together to find the cause.

But when we began talking about Asian concepts of “soft power” — what Ni calls leadership “by water rather than by fire” — I started to see a side of him that was less impressed by Western styles of communication. “In Asian cultures,” Ni said, “there’s often a subtle way to get what you want. It’s not always aggressive, but it can be very determined and very skillful. In the end, much is achieved because of it. Aggressive power I beats you up; soft power wins you over.

We stop valuing ourselves enough when we communicate. Our true expe­riences are completely taciturn. They could not be communicated even if they wanted to be. This is because the right words for them do not exist. The things we have words for are also the things we have already left behind. There is a grain of contempt in all speech. Language, it seems, was invented only for average, mediocre, communicable things. People vulgarize themselves when they speak a language.

Under the seeming disorder of the old city, wherever the old city is working successfully, is a marvelous order for maintaining the safety of the streets and the freedom of the city. It is a complex order. Its essence is intricacy of sidewalk use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes. This order is all composed of movement and change, and although it is life, not art, we may fancifully call it the art form of the city and liken it to the dance — not to a simple-minded precision dance with everyone kicking up at the same time, twirling in unison and bowing off en masse, but to an intricate ballet in which the individual dancers and ensembles all have distinctive parts which miraculously reinforce each other and compose an orderly whole. The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself from place to place, and in any once place is always replete with new improvisations. The stretch of Hudson Street where I live is each day the scene of an intricate sidewalk ballet. I make my own first entrance into it a little after eight when I put out my garbage gcan, surely a prosaic occupation, but I enjoy my part, my little clang, as the junior droves of junior high school students walk by the center of the stage dropping candy wrapper. (How do they eat so much candy so early in the morning?) While I sweep up the wrappers I watch the other rituals of the morning: Mr Halpert unlocking the laundry's handcart from its mooring to a cellar door, Joe Cornacchia's son-in-law stacking out the empty crates from the delicatessen, the barber bringing out his sidewalk folding chair, Mr. Goldstein arranging the coils of wire which proclaim the hardware store is open, the wife of the tenement's super intendent depositing her chunky three-year-old with a toy mandolin on the stoop, the vantage point from which he is learning English his mother cannot speak. Now the primary childrren, heading for St. Luke's, dribble through the south; the children from St. Veronica\s cross, heading to the west, and the children from P.S 41, heading toward the east. Two new entrances are made from the wings: well-dressed and even elegant women and men with brief cases emerge from doorways and side streets. Most of these are heading for the bus and subways, but some hover on the curbs, stopping taxis which have miraculously appeared at the right moment, for the taxis are part of a wider morning ritual: having dropped passengers from midtown in the downtown financial district, they are now bringing downtowners up tow midtown. Simultaneously, numbers of women in housedresses have emerged and as they crisscross with one another they pause for quick conversations that sound with laughter or joint indignation, never, it seems, anything in between. It is time for me to hurry to work too, and I exchange my ritual farewell with Mr. Lofaro, the short, thick bodied, white-aproned fruit man who stands outside his doorway a little up the street, his arms folded, his feet planted, looking solid as the earth itself. We nod; we each glance quickly up and down the street, then look back at eachother and smile. We have done this many a morning for more than ten years, and we both know what it means: all is well. The heart of the day ballet I seldom see, because part off the nature of it is that working people who live there, like me, are mostly gone, filling the roles of strangers on other sidewalks. But from days off, I know enough to know that it becomes more and more intricate. Longshoremen who are not working that day gather at the White Horse or the Ideal or the International for beer and conversation. The executives and business lunchers from the industries just to the west throng the Dorgene restaurant and the Lion's Head coffee house; meat market workers and communication scientists fill the bakery lunchroom.

When we are young,” Mariana said, “and afraid—when we are shamed, and humiliated—something happens. Time stops. It freezes, in that moment. A version of us is trapped, at that age—forever.” “Trapped where?” asked Liz, one of the group. “Trapped here.” Mariana tapped the side of her head. “A frightened child is hiding in your mind—still unsafe; still unheard and unloved. And the sooner you get in touch with that child and learn to communicate with them, the more harmonious your life will be.

Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words. In a world of asynchronous communication, where we are so often buried in our screens, our gaze rooted to the rectangular objects buzzing in our hands, our attention consumed by ephemera, stop and experience this dialogue with my young departed colleague, now ageless and extant in memory.

Lip was in his element. Him and his languages. His linguistic abilities didn’t just stop at Pig Latin, like the rest of us. He was also pretty savvy with the computer kind. Pascal, Basic, JavaScript, those were child’s play to him. He knew the completely worthless programming languages, as well. Like IronPython, IPTSCRAE, TenCore, SystemVerilog; some of the names were so ridiculous they sounded like Klingon gibberish: “Metalua, KUKA, Nemerle…” Because you never knew when you’d need to communicate with a toaster.

Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, by all accounts a rugged thirty-one-year-old geologist, was conducting a land survey in the Alaskan bush in 1977 when she saw an aggressive black bear beelining toward her. Dusel-Bacon waved her arms and shouted, right up until the moment the bear knocked her down, after which she decided to play dead so the bear wouldn’t see her as a threat. That was a consequential error in judgment, experts said afterward, because the 170-pound bear likely never saw her as a threat. It was just hungry. When she stopped resisting, it dragged her into the trees and began to eat her alive. Even as some parts of her body disappeared down the throat of the bear, other parts of her body, quite heroically, accessed a communication device and alerted a partner in the area as to her emergency. Other geologists arrived in a helicopter and scared the bear off in time to save her life. The never-say-die Dusel-Bacon went on to post instructional YouTube videos in which she demonstrates how to chop carrots, wash dishes, and get dressed with two prosthetic arms.

The core components of high EQ are the following: The ability to self-soothe. The key to managing emotion is to allow, acknowledge, and tolerate our intense emotions so that they evaporate, without getting stuck in them or taking actions we’ll later regret. Self-soothing is what enables us to manage our anxiety and upsets, which in turn allows us to work through emotionally charged issues in a constructive way. Emotional self-awareness and acceptance. If we don’t understand the emotions washing over us, they scare us, and we can’t tolerate them. We repress our hurt, fear, or disappointment. Those emotions, no longer regulated by our conscious mind, have a way of popping out unmodulated, as when a preschooler socks his sister or we (as adults) lose our tempers or eat a pint of ice cream. By contrast, children raised in a home in which there are limits on behavior but not on feelings grow up understanding that all emotions are acceptable, a part of being human. That understanding gives them more control over their emotions. Impulse control. Emotional intelligence liberates us from knee-jerk emotional reactions. A child (or adult) with high EQ will act rather than react and problem-solve rather than blame. It doesn’t mean you never get angry or anxious, only that you don’t fly off the handle. As a result, our lives and relationships work better. Empathy. Empathy is the ability to see and feel something from the other’s point of view. When you’re adept at understanding the mental and emotional states of other people, you resolve differences constructively and connect deeply with others. Naturally, empathy makes us better communicators.

When the cyclical law of repetition suddenly stops its rotating movement, creation, freed from vanity, will not be absorbed into the impersonal Absolute of a Nirvana but will see the beginning of an eternal springtime, in which all the forces of life, triumphant over death, will come to the fulness of their unfolding, since God will be the only principle of life in all things. Then the deified will shine like stars around the only Star, Christ, with whom they will reign in the same glory of the Holy Trinity, communicated to each without measure by the Holy Spirit.

Your words and your behavior must be in line with your beliefs before you can begin to enjoy a truly authentic life. When you stop worrying about pleasing everyone and, instead, are willing to be bold enough to live according to your own values, you'll experience many benefits: -Your self confidence will soar. The more you're able to see that you don't have to make people happy, the more independence and confidence you'll gain. You'll feel content with the decisions you make, even when other people disagree with your actions, because you'll know you made the right choice. -You'll have more time and energy to devote to your goals. Instead of wasting energy trying to become the person you think others want you to be, you'll have time and energy to work on yourself. When you channel that effort toward your goals, you'll be much more likely to be successful. -You'll feel less stressed. When you set limits and healthy boundaries, you'll experience a lot less stress and irritation. You'll feel like you have more control over your life. -You'll establish healthier relationships. Other people will develop more respect for you when you behave in an assertive manner. Your communication will improve and you'll be able to prevent yourself from building a lot of anger and resentment toward people. -You'll have increased willpower. An interesting 2008 study published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showed that people have much more willpower when they're making choices on their own accord rather than out of an attempt to please someone else. If you're only doing something to make someone else happy, you'll struggle to reach your goal. You'll be motivated to keep p the good work if you're convinced it's the best choice for you.

Oh, that was easy,’ says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next pedestrian crossing. “Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo’s kidneys, but that didn’t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God. “Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation.

In long-term relationships, as in families, we often get in the habit of thinking that change isn't possible. We think the other person should change and they won't, so we give up hope. But we need to stop judging and return to our own internal communication. If we wait for our parents or our partner to change, it may take a very long time. If we wait for the other person to change, we may spend all our time waiting. So it's better to change yourself. Don't try to force the other person to change. Even if it takes a long time, you will feel better when you are master of yourself and you are doing your best.

Why are women so ungenerous to other women? Is it because we have been tokens for so long? Or is there a deeper animosity we owe it to ourselves to explore? A publisher...couldn't understand why women were so loath to help each other.... The notion flitted through my mind that somehow, by helping..., I might be hurting my own chances for something or other -- what I did not know. If there was room for only one woman poet, another space would be filled.... If I still feel I am in competition with other women, how do less well-known women feel? Terrible, I have to assume. I have had to train myself to pay as much attention to women at parties as to men.... I have had to force myself not to be dismissive of other women's creativity. We have been semi-slaves for so long (as Doris Lessing says) that we must cultivate freedom within ourselves. It doesn't come naturally. Not yet. In her writing about the drama of childhood developments, Alice Miller has created, among other things, a theory of freedom. in order to embrace freedom, a child must be sufficiently nurtured, sufficiently loved. Security and abundance are the grounds for freedom. She shows how abusive child-rearing is communicated from one generation to the next and how fascism profits from generations of abused children. Women have been abused for centuries, so it should surprise no one that we are so good at abusing each other. Until we learn how to stop doing that, we cannot make our revolution stick. Many women are damaged in childhood -- unprotected, unrespected, and treated with dishonesty. Is it any wonder that we build up vast defences against other women since the perpetrators of childhood abuse have so often been women? Is it any wonder that we return intimidation with intimidation, or that we reserve our greatest fury for others who remind us of our own weaknesses -- namely other women? Men, on the other hand, however intellectually condescending, clubbish, loutishly lewd, are rarely as calculatingly cruel as women. They tend, rather, to advance us when we are young and cute (and look like darling daughters) and ignore us when we are older and more sure of our opinions (and look like scary mothers), but they don't really know what they're doing. They are too busy bonding with other men, and creating male pecking orders, to pay attention to us. If we were skilled at compromise and alliance-building, we could transform society. The trouble is: we are not yet good at this. We are still quarrelling among ourselves. This is the crisis feminism faces today.

One day Moses was walking in the mountains on his own when he saw a shepherd in the distance. The man was on his knees with his hands spread out to the sky, praying. Moses was delighted. But when he got closer, he was equally stunned to hear the shepherd’s prayer. “Oh, my beloved God, I love Thee more than Thou can know. I will do anything for Thee, just say the word. Even if Thou asked me to slaughter the fattest sheep in my flock in Thy name, I would do so without hesitation. Thou would roast it and put its tail fat in Thy rice to make it more tasty.” Moses inched toward the shepherd, listening attentively. “Afterward I would wash Thy feet and clean Thine ears and pick Thy lice for Thee. That is how much I love Thee.” Having heard enough, Moses interrupted the shepherd, yelling, “Stop, you ignorant man! What do you think you are doing? Do you think God eats rice? Do you think God has feet for you to wash? This is not prayer. It is sheer blasphemy.” Dazed and ashamed, the shepherd apologized repeatedly and promised to pray as decent people did. Moses taught him several prayers that afternoon. Then he went on his way, utterly pleased with himself. But that night Moses heard a voice. It was God’s. “Oh, Moses, what have you done? You scolded that poor shepherd and failed to realize how dear he was to Me. He might not be saying the right things in the right way, but he was sincere. His heart was pure and his intentions good. I was pleased with him. His words might have been blasphemy to your ears, but to Me they were sweet blasphemy.” Moses immediately understood his mistake. The next day, early in the morning, he went back to the mountains to see the shepherd. He found him praying again, except this time he was praying in the way he had been instructed. In his determination to get the prayer right, he was stammering, bereft of the excitement and passion of his earlier prayer. Regretting what he had done to him, Moses patted the shepherd’s back and said: “My friend, I was wrong. Please forgive me. Keep praying in your own way. That is more precious in God’s eyes.” The shepherd was astonished to hear this, but even deeper was his relief. Nevertheless, he did not want to go back to his old prayers. Neither did he abide by the formal prayers that Moses had taught him. He had now found a new way of communicating with God. Though satisfied and blessed in his naïve devotion, he was now past that stage—beyond his sweet blasphemy. “So you see, don’t judge the way other people connect to God,” concluded Shams. “To each his own way and his own prayer. God does not take us at our word. He looks deep into our hearts. It is not the ceremonies or rituals that make a difference, but whether our hearts are sufficiently pure or not.

Remember, every relationship is an opportunity to either discover more of your individuality and expand as a human being or do the pretzel dance and twist yourself into a smaller version of you based on who you think your partner wants you to be. Despite what your mind tells you, your partner is attracted to the real you—the authentic you that he first met—not the twisted version you think he wants. When you commit to being yourself from the start and to communicating your truth no matter what, you’ll avoid virtually all the drama, angst, and anxiety of not knowing where things stand that many other women experience on a daily basis. Most women are afraid to be real because they mistakenly believe that they’re not enough as they are. This “I’m not enough” mind-set not only is inaccurate but also destroys your well-being and ability to have a loving and satisfying relationship. Being yourself and speaking your truth from the moment you meet is the secret to having relationships unfold naturally and authentically. It is also the key to maintaining your irresistibility. Be yourself. Communicate what works you and what doesn’t. Do it from day one and never stop. This is the most powerful step you can take at the beginning of any relationship to set it up for long-term success. Speaking of relationship success, don’t confuse relationship longevity with relationship success. Just because a relationship lasts for many years does not mean it’s a success. Many couples cling to a lifeless and miserable existence they call a relationship because they are too afraid to be alone or to face the uncertainty of the unknown. Living a life of quiet desperation devoid of true love, passion, and spiritual partnership is not my idea of success. Relationships, again, are life’s grandest opportunity for spiritual growth and evolution. They exist so that we may discover ourselves, awaken our hearts, and heal our barriers to love. Every relationship you’ve ever had, or you ever will have, is designed to bring you closer to your divinity and ability to experience and express the very best of who you are.

If you can, it’s best to teach your child self-coaxing skills while he’s still very young, when there’s less stigma associated with social hesitancy. Be a role model by greeting strangers in a calm and friendly way, and by getting together with your own friends. Similarly, invite some of his classmates to your house. Let him know gently that when you’re together with others, it’s not OK to whisper or tug at your pants leg to communicate his needs; he needs to speak up. Make sure that his social encounters are pleasant by selecting kids who aren’t overly aggressive and playgroups that have a friendly feel to them. Have your child play with younger kids if this gives him confidence, older kids if they inspire him

Be ready. Be seated. See what courage sounds like. See how brave it is to reveal yourself in this way. But above all, see what it is to still live, to profoundly influence the lives of others after you are gone, by your words. In a world of asynchronous communication, where we are so often buried in our screens, our gaze rooted to the rectangular objects buzzing in our hands, our attention consumed by ephemera, stop and experience this dialogue with my young departed colleague, now ageless and extant in memory. Listen to Paul. In the silences between his words, listen to what you have to say back. Therein lies his message. I got it. I hope you experience it, too. It is a gift. Let me not stand between you and Paul.

Being Willing to Ask for Help • I’ll ask for help whenever I need to. • I’ll remind myself that if I need something, most people will be glad to help if they can. • I’ll use clear, intimate communication to ask for what I want, explaining my feelings and the reasons for my request. • I’ll trust that most people will listen if I ask them to. Being Myself, Whether People Accept Me or Not • When I state my thoughts clearly and politely, without malice, I won’t try to control how people take it. • I won’t give more energy than I really have. • Instead of trying to please, I’ll give other people a true indication of how I feel. • I won’t volunteer for something if I think I’ll resent it later. • If someone says something I find offensive, I’ll offer an alternative viewpoint. I won’t try to change the other person’s mind; I just won’t let the statement go unremarked upon. Sustaining and Appreciating Emotional Connections • I’ll make a point of keeping in touch with special people I care about and returning their calls or electronic messages. • I’ll think of myself as a strong person who deserves to give and receive help from my community of friends. • Even when people aren’t saying the “right” thing, I’ll tune in to whether they’re trying to help me. If their effort makes me feel emotionally nurtured, I’ll express my gratitude. • When I’m irritated with someone, I’ll think about what I want to say that could improve our relationship. I’ll wait until I cool off and then ask if the other person is willing to listen to my feelings. Having Reasonable Expectations for Myself • I’ll keep in mind that being perfect isn’t always necessary. I’ll get stuff done rather than obsess over getting things done perfectly. • When I get tired, I’ll rest or do something different. My level of physical energy will tell me when I’ve been doing too much. I won’t wait for an accident or illness to make me stop. • When I make a mistake, I’ll chalk it up to being human. Even if I think I’ve anticipated everything, there will be outcomes I don’t expect. • I’ll remember that everyone is responsible for their own feelings and for expressing their needs clearly. Beyond common courtesy, it isn’t up to me to guess what others want.

When I was growing up it was still acceptable—not to me but in social terms—to say that one was not interested in science and did not see the point in bothering with it. This is no longer the case. Let me be clear. I am not promoting the idea that all young people should grow up to be scientists. I do not see that as an ideal situation, as the world needs people with a wide variety of skills. But I am advocating that all young people should be familiar with and confident around scientific subjects, whatever they choose to do. They need to be scientifically literate, and inspired to engage with developments in science and technology in order to learn more. A world where only a tiny super-elite are capable of understanding advanced science and technology and its applications would be, to my mind, a dangerous and limited one. I seriously doubt whether long-range beneficial projects such as cleaning up the oceans or curing diseases in the developing world would be given priority. Worse, we could find that technology is used against us and that we might have no power to stop it. I don’t believe in boundaries, either for what we can do in our personal lives or for what life and intelligence can accomplish in our universe. We stand at a threshold of important discoveries in all areas of science. Without doubt, our world will change enormously in the next fifty years. We will find out what happened at the Big Bang. We will come to understand how life began on Earth. We may even discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. While the chances of communicating with an intelligent extra-terrestrial species may be slim, the importance of such a discovery means we must not give up trying. We will continue to explore our cosmic habitat, sending robots and humans into space. We cannot continue to look inwards at ourselves on a small and increasingly polluted and overcrowded planet. Through scientific endeavour and technological innovation, we must look outwards to the wider universe, while also striving to fix the problems on Earth. And I am optimistic that we will ultimately create viable habitats for the human race on other planets. We will transcend the Earth and learn to exist in space. This is not the end of the story, but just the beginning of what I hope will be billions of years of life flourishing in the cosmos. And one final point—we never really know where the next great scientific discovery will come from, nor who will make it. Opening up the thrill and wonder of scientific discovery, creating innovative and accessible ways to reach out to the widest young audience possible, greatly increases the chances of finding and inspiring the new Einstein. Wherever she might be. So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.

Mom, what about the story you were going to tell Katie?” “Oh, yes. Queen Elizabeth. When she came to Kenya for a visit in 1952, she and Prince Philip stayed at Treetops. It’s a hotel not far from here. The rooms are at treetop height. She sipped tea on the open veranda while the elephants and other wild animals came to the watering hole below. Her father, King George IV, had been ill but seemed to have recovered, so the trip to Africa didn’t pose a conflict.” “Was he the one who stuttered? I remember seeing a movie about him,” Katie said. “Yes, that was the same king,” Eli answered for his mom. “What happened is that he took a turn for the worse and passed away while Princess Elizabeth was at Treetops. Since communication between England and Africa was so slow, she didn’t know her father had died until after they had left Treetops, and they stopped for lunch at the Aberdare Country Club, where we just ate.” “Really? The queen of England ate at that same restaurant?” “Yes. Only she didn’t yet know she was the queen of England. Word hadn’t reached her. The great statement about Treetops is that Elizabeth went up the stairs to her room that night as a princess, and when she descended those same stairs the next morning, she was the queen of England.” “I love stories like that,” Katie said. “I mean, it’s sad that her father died while she was in Africa, but what a rite of passage that moment was. She was doing what was on the schedule for that day, and by the time she put her head on her pillow that night, everything had changed.” As

Loulou broke free from Zeus to come toward us but stopped abruptly when Priest stepped in front of me, blocking her way. They stared each other down, my big sister and my beloved psycho, communicating in the way of alphas, without words using only intense body language. Slowly, Priest pulled me by the wrist to his side, then deliberately wrapped his big hand around the back of my neck under my hair to anchor me to him. “She’s mine,” he said slowly, each word barely leashed with aggression. Loulou mimicked him, cocking her head and narrowing her eyes. Her hip cocked to the side as she folded her arms across her chest and arched a brow. “And you’re hers?” He shrugged one shoulder casually, but the hand on my neck flexed in spasm. “Whatever there is of me to have.

Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. We often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being. In NVC, no matter what words others may use to express themselves, we simply listen for their observations, feelings, needs, and requests. Then we may wish to reflect back, paraphrasing what we have understood. We stay with empathy and allow others the opportunity to fully express themselves before we turn our attention to solutions or requests for relief. We need empathy to give empathy. When we sense ourselves being defensive or unable to empathize, we need to (1) stop, breathe, give ourselves empathy; (2) scream nonviolently; or (3) take time out.

Compassion and communication are both incredibly important in relationships, but most of us use these at the wrong time. If we communicate, it's only in times of conflict, allowing repressed emotions and unsaid worries form into their worst phrasings. If we show compassion, it's only in good times, when we're feeling good about one another and don't feel triggered or attacked. What if we changed our approach? What if we showed compassion in conflict—taking the time to listen, understand, help each other release pent-up emotions? And what if we communicated in good times—taking the time to talk about patterns we fall into, triggers we both have, and how we can work together to break our cycles? Then, we would stop helplessly dancing the same old tango of mutual misunderstanding. Then, we could work on giving one another room to feel, to love, and to grow.

To those who are fighting depression or deal with anxiety. Here is something to think about... When you're fighting depression or have anxiety, it is like being scared and tired at the same time. The fear of failure, but no urge to be productive. It's wanting friends but hate socializing. You want to be alone, but not feel lonely. I want you to know that it's okay to stumble and fall. But you need to pick yourself up. Keep fighting the good fight and understand, you're not alone. You are carrying undeniable strength and will make it through. Ever ask yourself, are you exhausted by fighting with the thoughts in your head telling you, you won't be anything? Stop now and rehab! Communication is important and quit pushing others away that are willing to help you. And most importantly, start helping yourself. The biggest enemy is YOU. The biggest critic is YOURSELF.

Alex has been trying to communicate with me in our dreams. She covered our childhood home in letters asking me to kill her! She thinks the only way we can save the Otherworld is by taking her life!" "That's terrible!" Red said. "Just because someone is dangerous doesn't mean they have to be killed to be stopped. Think about the Evil Queen - oh wait, I suppose that mirror thing was worse than death. . . . Well, think about the Enchantress - oh yeah, never mind. . . . But General Marquis -oops, he really died. . . . Well, the Masked Man didn't - oh, that's right, he did. . . . Sorry, I thought there were plenty of examples. You know, maybe Alex had a point -" "We're not killing my sister," Conner said. "I refuse to believe there isn't a way to break the curse she's under! Alex's emotions are being affected right now and she's jumping to conclusions. We'll find a way to help her." "Yes, we will," Goldilocks said confidently. "I know exactly what's going through Alex's mind right now. It wasn't long ago that I was in her shoes. She's feeling scared, embarrassed, and guilty, and she thinks there's no coming back from the place she's at. But luckily for her, she's got us to set her straight." "Oh, it's Goldilocks!" Red declared with a snap of her fingers. "She's the example I was looking for! Goldie was a lonely, miserable, and ill-tempered thief when we first met. But thanks to my friendship, she's turned her life around and become a social, happy, and balanced woman." Goldilocks sighed. "What can I say? I owe it all to you, Red." "You're quite welcome," Red said. "What I did for Goldilocks is exactly what we need to do for Alex. If she insists on being killed, then we'll just have to love her to death." Conner and his friends nodded politely and gazed outside the cage, hoping Red wouldn't come up with any more nonsensical anecdotes.

Something is bothering you. I have sensed it all morning.” He slid his communicator back into his pocket then took her hand in his, linking their fingers together. The action took her off guard, but she welcomed it. The first time she’d held his hand he’d been confused by it, but this was the second time in the last few days he’d initiated it. She loved it. “Nothing, just… I was hoping that this evening we could talk about something.” His shoulders stiffened just the slightest fraction. She was getting good at reading the subtle changes in his body language. “What about?” “Not now. I know you need to get to one of your job sites. Or there’s an emergency at the Samio.” He raised a dark eyebrow. “How do you know this?” “Because your communicator has been buzzing like crazy since we…” Her cheeks heated up and she cleared her throat. It had started going off when she’d been sitting on his face this morning. They’d both ignored it. Then when she got out of the shower she’d found him responding to what seemed like dozens of communications, one buzz after another. The sounds had been maddening. He’d stopped responding when they left his place, but she understood how busy he was and didn’t want to get in the way of that. “Since we what?” he murmured, leaning closer as they came to a stop in front of another elevator. This one had a shiny, sleek-looking silver door. “You know what,” she whispered, glancing around. There were two males waiting at the next elevator and though they weren’t looking in their direction she wasn’t going to talk about that in public. “I want to hear you say it.” “That’s because you’re a pervert.” He gave her one of those grins that made her wonder how she’d ever lived without knowing this male. It still stunned her how much he’d come to mean to her in the past week and a half. “That’s very true where you’re concerned.” He dropped a kiss on her forehead. -Con & Leilani

When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. But in the depths of our being Christ is praying for more than we imagine. Compared to the immensity of that hidden prayer of Christ in us, our explicit praying dwindles to almost nothing. That is why silence is so essential in discovery the heart of prayer. Although God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never stops trying to communicate with us, God never wants to impose anything on us. Often God's voice comes in a whisper, in a breath of silence. Remaining in silence in God's presence, open to the Spirit, is already prayer. It is not a matter of trying to obtain inner silence at all costs by following some method that creates a kind of emptiness within. The important thing is a childlike attitude of trust by which we allow Christ to pray within us silently, and then one day, we will discover that the depths of our being ar inhabited by a Presence.

But Homo sapiens’ dependency on social communication and education is as much of a curse as it is a gift. On the flip side of the coin, it is education’s fault that religious myths and fake news propagate so easily in human societies. From the earliest age, our brains trustfully absorb the tales we are told, whether they are true or false. In a social context, our brains lower their guard; we stop acting like budding scientists and become mindless lemmings. This can be good—as when we trust the knowledge of our science teachers, and thus avoid having to replicate every experiment since Galileo’s time! But it can also be detrimental, as when we collectively propagate an unreliable piece of “wisdom” inherited from our forebears. It is on this basis that doctors foolishly practiced bloodletting and cupping therapies for centuries, without ever testing their actual impact. (In case you are wondering, both are actually harmful in the vast majority of diseases.)

What was clear to me was that something was happening, and that something was a train I couldn't stop or slow down or get off. What was clear too was when it ended. I knew the exact moment. I could feel it. Even then, in that hour, I understood that the experience was of supreme value and importance. I didn't need hindsight. I knew in the moment. My family may have been repelled, even appalled by where I had been and what I had done; my friends may have feared for my sanity; others who cared for me may have shaken their heads at the waste and folly and futility. Even I understood it would take me years to recover. I didn't care. The trip was worth it. Why? Because I now had a history that was mine alone. I had an ordeal that I had survived and a passage that I had paid for with my own blood. Nobody knew about this passage but me. Nobody would ever know, nor did I feel the slightest urge to communicate it. This was mine, and nobody could ever take it away from me. I had punched my ticket. I had filled in the blanks.

Tom Demarco, a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild team of consultants ... and his colleague Timothy Lister devised a study called the Coding War Games. The purpose of the games was to identify the characteristics of the best and worst computer programmers; more than six hundred developers from ninety-two different companies participated. Each designed, coded, and tested a program, working in his normal office space during business hours. Each participant was also assigned a partner from the same company. The partners worked separately, however, without any communication, a feature of the games that turned out to be critical. When the results came in, they revealed an enormous performance gap. The best outperformed the worst by a 10:1 ratio. The top programmers were also about 2.5 times better than the median. When DeMarco and Lister tried to figure out what accounted for this astonishing range, the factors that you'd think would matter — such as years of experience, salary, even the time spent completing the work — had little correlation to outcome. Programmers with 10 years' experience did no better than those with two years. The half who performed above the median earned less than 10 percent more than the half below — even though they were almost twice as good. The programmers who turned in "zero-defect" work took slightly less, not more, time to complete the exercise than those who made mistakes. It was a mystery with one intriguing clue: programmers from the same companies performed at more or less the same level, even though they hadn't worked together. That's because top performers overwhelmingly worked for companies that gave their workers the most privacy, personal space, control over their physical environments, and freedom from interruption. Sixty-two percent of the best performers said that their workspace was acceptably private, compared to only 19 percent of the worst performers; 76 percent of the worst performers but only 38 percent of the top performers said that people often interrupted them needlessly.

Also as in natural settings, in workplaces without well-defined processes, energy minimization becomes prioritized. This is fundamental human nature: if there’s no structure surrounding how hard efforts are coordinated, we default to our instinct to not expend any more energy than is necessary. Most of us are guilty of acting on this instinct when given a chance. An email arrives that informally represents a new responsibility for you to manage; because there’s no formal process in place to assign the work or track its progress, you seek instead the easiest way to get the responsibility off your plate—even if just temporarily—so you send a quick reply asking for an ambiguous clarification. Thus unfolds a game of obligation hot potato, as messages bounce around, each temporarily shifting responsibility from one inbox to another, until a deadline or irate boss finally stops the music, leading to a last-minute scramble to churn out a barely acceptable result. This, too, is obviously a terribly inefficient way to get work done.

That trust takes time. But when you love each other, it shouldn't be scary to be vulnerable and it shouldn't be hard to compromise. I'd like to share with you what we like to call SACRED HEALING. We use it every day of our marriage, and it hasn't failed us yet! When you have something you need to communicate, those words are SACRED: 1. STOP when you register something's wrong. 2. ADMIT that you have an issue to discuss. 3. CALMLY express your feelings. 4. REFLECT on why you're feeling this way. 5. ENGAGE with your partner to actively fix the issue. 6. DEVOTE time after conflict to returning to a loving state. And when your partner is saying something SACRED, it's your job to get the leader of the HEALING: 1. HEAR your partner's words. 2. ENGAGE with your questions for clarification and understanding. 3. ACKNOWLEDGE that what they're saying is important. 4. LOOK BACK on your own role in the conflict. 5. INITIATE discussion without anger or defense. 6. NEGOTIATE a solution with pure intentions. 7. GROW as partners and individuals by fixing the problem as a team.

Imagine the following. Three groups of ten individuals are in a park at lunchtime with a rainstorm threatening. In the first group, someone says: “Get up and follow me.” When he starts walking and only a few others join in, he yells to those still seated: “Up, I said, and now!” In the second group, someone says: “We’re going to have to move. Here’s the plan. Each of us stands up and marches in the direction of the apple tree. Please stay at least two feet away from other group members and do not run. Do not leave any personal belongings on the ground here and be sure to stop at the base of the tree. When we are all there . . .” In the third group, someone tells the others: “It’s going to rain in a few minutes. Why don’t we go over there and sit under that huge apple tree. We’ll stay dry, and we can have fresh apples for lunch.” I am sometimes amazed at how many people try to transform organizations using methods that look like the first two scenarios: authoritarian decree and micromanagement. Both approaches have been applied widely in enterprises over the last century, but mostly for maintaining existing systems, not transforming those systems into something better. When the goal is behavior change, unless the boss is extremely powerful, authoritarian decree often works poorly even in simple situations, like the apple tree case. Increasingly, in complex organizations, this approach doesn’t work at all. Without the power of kings and queens behind it, authoritarianism is unlikely to break through all the forces of resistance. People will ignore you or pretend to cooperate while doing everything possible to undermine your efforts. Micromanagement tries to get around this problem by specifying what employees should do in detail and then monitoring compliance. This tactic can break through some of the barriers to change, but in an increasingly unacceptable amount of time. Because the creation and communication of detailed plans is deadly slow, the change produced this way tends to be highly incremental. Only the approach used in the third scenario above has the potential to break through all the forces that support the status quo and to encourage the kind of dramatic shifts found in successful transformations. (See figure 5–1.) This approach is based on vision—a central component of all great leadership.

A well-heeled housewife confided that all the husbands in her social circle had recently accepted jobs in China, and were now commuting between Cupertino and Shanghai, partly because their quiet styles prevented them from advancing locally. The American companies “think they can’t handle business,” she said, “because of presentation. In business, you have to put a lot of nonsense together and present it. My husband always just makes his point and that’s the end of it. When you look at big companies, almost none of the top executives are Asians. They hire someone who doesn’t know anything about the business, but maybe he can make a good presentation.” A software engineer told me how overlooked he felt at work in comparison to other people, “especially people from European origin, who speak without thinking.” In China, he said, “If you’re quiet, you’re seen as being wise. It’s completely different here. Here people like to speak out. Even if they have an idea, not completely mature yet, people still speak out. If I could be better in communication, my work would be much more recognized. Even though my manager appreciates me, he still doesn’t know I have done work so wonderful.

Was this the end of the madness? Were science and rationality really coming back? Ye asked herself these questions repeatedly. Ye never again received any communication from Trisolaris. She knew that she would have to wait at least eight years to hear that world’s response to her message, and after leaving the base, she no longer had any way of receiving extraterrestrial replies. It was such an important thing, and yet she had done it all by herself. This gave her a sense of unreality. As time passed, that sense grew ever stronger. What had happened resembled an illusion, a dream. Could the sun really amplify radio signals? Did she really use it as an antenna to send a message about human civilization into the universe? Did she really receive a message from the stars? Did that blood-hued morning, when she had betrayed the entire human race, really happen? And those murders … Ye tried to numb herself with work so as to forget the past—and almost succeeded. A strange kind of self-protective instinct caused her to stop recalling the past, to stop thinking about the communication she had once had with another civilization. Her life passed this way, day after day, in tranquility. *

I owe so much to sex workers when it comes to being more open about sex. About knowing how to talk about sex. And my understanding of consent—not just the idea of consent, but the practice. How to respond correctly to a no or “Cut!” or a safe word, which is to say: Never, ever less than fully and immediately. How to discuss the sex you’re about to have, even if you feel embarrassed or awkward talking about it. How to identify all the ways in which people coerce or pressure or push—sometimes without consciously knowing it—and not do those things. And how to have a conversation with a partner about what I want, and ask them the same. If society protected, respected, listened to, and learned from sex workers—well, then, sex education might actually stand a chance of being useful. And we all might be a little better at having those important conversations. Those difficult conversations, possibly even the ones that aren’t about sex. Because in the end, what I’m talking about is communication. Feeling safe. Knowing how to state, clearly, what you are feeling, and maybe even why. Imagine if violent homes came with safe words. Everybody stop. Hands on your head. Quiet on the set, please.

Dostum offered this exoneration as evidence of his loyalty to the Americans. But his conviction that the Americans were by his side during the incident raised another set of difficult questions about whether the Special Forces and CIA personnel witnessed any of the communications between Dostum and his commanders about the murders, and failed to either stop them, or report them after the fact. Nutsch told me he knew of no abuses. “My team has been investigated multiple times over this,” he said. “We did not witness, nor observe, anything.” Just as Dostum considered the American special forces blood brothers, the camaraderie was apparent on Nutsch’s side. “I saw him as a charismatic leader. Led from the front. Took care of his guys,” he added. In a celebratory Hollywood rendition of 595’s collaboration with Dostum called 12 Strong, Nutsch was portrayed, with exaggerated brawn and smolder, by Chris Hemsworth, the actor who played the superhero Thor. Nutsch grew testy when I asked a series of questions about the more complicated realities of the story. “Dostum’s enemies are the ones accusing him of these things,” he said. When I told him Dostum had admitted the killings may have occurred, and suggested two of his commanders may have been involved, Nutsch paused, then replied, “I don’t have a reaction to that.

Parents often have the misconception that setting boundaries occurs when a child misbehaves, but the fact is that the word ‘misbehave’ is misused. Children don’t ‘mis’behave. They behave, either positively or negatively, to communicate. Small children communicate through their behavior because that is the only method of communication they have. Even when they become verbal, though, they still aren’t able to articulate big feelings and subtle problems well verbally, so as parents it’s our role to ‘listen between the lines’ of our children’s behavior to discern the need being communicated. Setting boundaries is not about ‘mis’behavior. It’s about guiding behavior, and guidance is something we provide through everyday interactions with our children. Repetition is the hallmark of the early years of parenting, from the endless tasks of diapering and feeding to the endless explorations of a curious toddler. There is no way, and no point in trying, to make a child stop acting like a child. There are, though, gentle ways to guide a child through the normal developmental stages safely and peacefully. The repetitious nature of boundary-setting in the early years is a bit like washing your hair, “Lather, rinse, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…” Knowing that and accepting it makes the seemingly endless repetitions, reminders, and redirections a bit easier to handle.

You’ve got great base stats, so someone like you wouldn’t get how I feel.” Aoi Hinami’s mouth moved ever so slightly, like she was repeating my words, but I couldn’t hear her. I wasn’t even sure what my voice sounded like just then. “Life is unfair. I’m ugly, I have a bad build, I overthink until I can’t do anything, I’m wishy-washy, people make fun of everything I do, and I have no confidence in my ability to communicate. How is someone like me supposed to beat someone strong like you?” This might have been the first time I ever said something like that to a stranger. “But that’s all fine. Because life’s not fair. You don’t get results just by trying hard. If you could, I would, but life doesn’t have rules. No rewards, no right answers. As a game, it’s a piece of shit. If there’s no right answer, then there’s no point in trying. And I hate the way normies like you live. Your confidence is totally baseless, and you go around in packs just pretending to have fun.” With the floodgates opened, I couldn’t stop myself. “Even when I have a reason to be confident, I shy away. When I’m in a group I just feel alone, and it’s not fun. I’m used to this life. I don’t know why things are this way. You have a problem with that? I’ve been like this as long as I can remember. That’s fine with me. I’m a loner, but I have my fun. I’m fine with this…” I clenched my fists. “…So don’t force your values on me!

The Company We Keep So now we have seen that our cells are in relationship with our thoughts, feelings, and each other. How do they factor into our relationships with others? Listening and communicating clearly play an important part in healthy relationships. Can relationships play an essential role in our own health? More than fifty years ago there was a seminal finding when the social and health habits of more than 4,500 men and women were followed for a period of ten years. This epidemiological study led researchers to a groundbreaking discovery: people who had few or no social contacts died earlier than those who lived richer social lives. Social connections, we learned, had a profound influence on physical health.9 Further evidence for this fascinating finding came from the town of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Epidemiologists were interested in Roseto because of its extremely low rate of coronary artery disease and death caused by heart disease compared to the rest of the United States. What were the town’s residents doing differently that protected them from the number one killer in the United States? On close examination, it seemed to defy common sense: health nuts, these townspeople were not. They didn’t get much exercise, many were overweight, they smoked, and they relished high-fat diets. They had all the risk factors for heart disease. Their health secret, effective despite questionable lifestyle choices, turned out to be strong communal, cultural, and familial ties. A few years later, as the younger generation started leaving town, they faced a rude awakening. Even when they had improved their health behaviors—stopped smoking, started exercising, changed their diets—their rate of heart disease rose dramatically. Why? Because they had lost the extraordinarily close connection they enjoyed with neighbors and family.10 From studies such as these, we learn that social isolation is almost as great a precursor of heart disease as elevated cholesterol or smoking. People connection is as important as cellular connections. Since the initial large population studies, scientists in the field of psychoneuroimmunology have demonstrated that having a support system helps in recovery from illness, prevention of viral infections, and maintaining healthier hearts.11 For example, in the 1990s researchers began laboratory studies with healthy volunteers to uncover biological links to social and psychological behavior. Infected experimentally with cold viruses, volunteers were kept in isolation and monitored for symptoms and evidence of infection. All showed immunological evidence of a viral infection, yet only some developed symptoms of a cold. Guess which ones got sick: those who reported the most stress and the fewest social interactions in their “real life” outside the lab setting.12 We Share the Single Cell’s Fate Community is part of our healing network, all the way down to the level of our cells. A single cell left alone in a petri dish will not survive. In fact, cells actually program themselves to die if they are isolated! Neurons in the developing brain that fail to connect to other cells also program themselves to die—more evidence of the life-saving need for connection; no cell thrives alone. What we see in the microcosm is reflected in the larger organism: just as our cells need to stay connected to stay alive, we, too, need regular contact with family, friends, and community. Personal relationships nourish our cells,

Because we were raised in a bigoted and hate-filled home, we simply assumed that calling someone a “cheap Jew” or saying someone “Jewed him down” were perfectly acceptable ways to communicate. Or at least we did until the day came when I called one of the cousins, a Neanderthal DeRosa boy, “a little Jew,” and he told me he wasn’t the Jew, that I was the Jew, and he even got Helen and Nana to confirm it for him. It came as a shock to me to find out we were a part of this obviously terrible tribe of skinflint, trouble-making, double-dealing, shrewdly smart desert people. When Denny found out, he was crestfallen because he had assumed that being Jewish meant, according to what his former foster family the Skodiens had taught him, a life behind a desk crunching numbers. “And I hate math,” he said, shaking his head. So here we were, accused Jews living in a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Not a good situation. Walter’s father was the worst. Learning about our few drops of Jewish blood seemed to ignite a special, long-held hatred in him. He became vile over nothing, finding any excuse to deride the Jews in front of us until Helen made him stop. We didn’t know what to make of it, except to write it off as another case of Wozniak-inspired insanity, but as young as we were, we could tell that at some point in his life he had crossed swords with a Jew someplace and came out on the losing end and we were going to pay for it. But because we really didn’t feel ourselves to be Jews, it didn’t sink in that he intended to hurt us with his crazy tirades. As I said, it’s hard to insult somebody when they don’t understand the insult, and it’s equally hard to insult them when they out and out refuse to be insulted. Word got around quickly.

Mal watched Mary hurry to meet her aunt, her skirts rippling like water. She was beauty itself, and Mal wanted her. Not simply in bed- though he definitely would have that- he wanted her nearness, her warmth, that silken voice that tried to be haughty, the sudden flash of her smile. Mal's body tightened, goading him to pursue her and do all the good things he longed to. He would. He'd see her again; he'd make certain of it. Mal reflected as he moved down the passage on his errand that he'd already learned much about Lady Mary Lennox. She was passionate and romantic, beguilingly so, but tried to hide that nature under proper behavior. She'd wanted Malcolm to kiss her- he'd seen it in her heartrendingly blue eyes. Mary had stopped herself only at the last moment, and reluctantly. She also had compassion, helping her sister communicate with a forbidden lover. If Mary *truly* believed in propriety, she'd never condone her sister writing such a heartfelt letter. She also risked censure for being the go-between. This showed that Mary was fond enough for her sister to risks for her. Brave then, as well. Courage, passion, beauty, compassion, and something inside her that longed to be wicked- *what a woman.* One night in bed with her would be worth every step he took to get her there. Whatever errands Mal had to run for her, whatever billet doux he needed to carry, or drippy-nosed suitors to run through with his sword, he would do it all for his reward at the end. *Mary*. Even her name was a joy to say. Mal spoke it out loud in the silence of the empty hall. He'd teach her to call him Mal, and she'd say it in her smooth voice when she was deep in passion. She'd be reluctant at first, but Mal would coax her, like a bird to his hand, teaching her to trust, never breaking her. And then Mary would be his.

The situation appeared to be convenient, and the Acharnians, being a considerable section of the city and furnishing three thousand hoplites, were likely to be impatient at the destruction of their property, and would communicate to the whole people a desire to fight. Or if the Athenians did not come out to meet him during this invasion, he could henceforward ravage the plain with more confidence, and march right up to the walls of the city. The Acharnians, having lost their own possessions, would be less willing to hazard their lives on behalf of their neighours, and so there would be a division in the Athenian counsels. Such was the motive of Archidamus in remaining at Acharnae. (Book 2 Chapter 20.4-5) But when they (Athenians) saw the army in the neighbourhood of Acharnae, and barely seven miles from the city, they felt the presence of the invader to be intolerable. The devastation of their country before their eyes, which the younger men had never seen at all, nor the elder except in the Persian invasion, naturally appeared to them a horrible thing, and the whole people, the young men especially, were anxious to go forth and put a stop to it. Knots were formed in the streets, and there were loud disputes, some eager to go out, a minority resisting. Soothsayers were repeating oracles of the most different kinds, which all found in some one or other enthusiastic listeners. The Acharnians, who in their own estimation were no small part of the Athenian state, seeing their land ravaged, strongly insisted that they should go out and fight.The excitement in the city was universal; the people were furious with Pericles, and, forgetting all his previous warnings, they abused him for not leading them to battle, as their general should, and laid all their miseries to his charge. (Ibid Chapter 21.2-3)

Mike sounded dismissive of Western communication styles, but he admitted that he sometimes wished he could be noisy and uninhibited himself. “They’re more comfortable with their own character,” he said of his Caucasian classmates. Asians are “not uncomfortable with who they are, but are uncomfortable with expressing who they are. In a group, there’s always that pressure to be outgoing. When they don’t live up to it, you can see it in their faces.” Mike told me about a freshman icebreaking event he’d participated in, a scavenger hunt in San Francisco that was supposed to encourage students to step out of their comfort zones. Mike was the only Asian assigned to a rowdy group, some of whom streaked naked down a San Francisco street and cross-dressed in a local department store during the hunt. One girl went to a Victoria’s Secret display and stripped down to her underwear. As Mike recounted these details, I thought he was going to tell me that his group had been over the top, inappropriate. But he wasn’t critical of the other students. He was critical of himself. “When people do things like that, there’s a moment where I feel uncomfortable with it. It shows my own limits. Sometimes I feel like they’re better than I am.” Mike was getting similar messages from his professors. A few weeks after the orientation event, his freshman adviser—a professor at Stanford’s medical school—invited a group of students to her house. Mike hoped to make a good impression, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. The other students seemed to have no problem joking around and asking intelligent questions. “Mike, you were so loud today,” the professor teased him when finally he said good-bye. “You just blew me away.” He left her house feeling bad about himself. “People who don’t talk are seen as weak or lacking,” he concluded ruefully.

There’s a slogan in the mahayana1 teachings that says, “Drive all blames into oneself.” The essence of this slogan is, “When it hurts so bad, it’s because I am hanging on so tight.” It’s not saying that we should beat ourselves up. It’s not advocating martyrdom. What it implies is that pain comes from holding so tightly to having it our own way and that one of the main exits we take when we find ourselves uncomfortable, when we find ourselves in an unwanted situation or an unwanted place, is to blame. We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who’s right and who’s wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us, and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don’t like about our associates or our society. It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others. Blaming is a way to protect our hearts, to try to protect what is soft and open and tender in ourselves. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground. This slogan is a helpful and interesting suggestion that we could begin to shift that deep-seated, ancient, habitual tendency to hang on to having everything on our own terms. The way to start would be, first, when we feel the tendency to blame, to try to get in touch with what it feels like to be holding on to ourselves so tightly. What does it feel like to blame? How does it feel to reject? What does it feel like to hate? What does it feel like to be righteously indignant? In each of us, there’s a lot of softness, a lot of heart. Touching that soft spot has to be the starting place. This is what compassion is all about. When we stop blaming long enough to give ourselves an open space in which to feel our soft spot, it’s as if we’re reaching down to touch a large wound that lies right underneath

ON THE MODUS OPERANDI OF OUR CURRENT PRESIDENT, DONALD J. TRUMP "According to a new ABC/Washington Post poll, President Trump’s disapproval rating has hit a new high." The President's response to this news was "“I don’t do it for the polls. Honestly — people won’t necessarily agree with this — I do nothing for the polls,” the president told reporters on Wednesday. “I do it to do what’s right. I’m here for an extended period of time. I’m here for a period that’s a very important period of time. And we are straightening out this country.” - Both Quotes Taken From Aol News - August 31, 2018 In The United States, as in other Republics, the two main categories of Presidential motivation for their assigned tasks are #1: Self Interest in seeking to attain and to hold on to political power for their own sakes, regarding the welfare of This Republic to be of secondary importance. #2: Seeking to attain and to hold on to the power of that same office for the selfless sake of this Republic's welfare, irregardless of their personal interest, and in the best of cases going against their personal interests to do what is best for this Republic even if it means making profound and extreme personal sacrifices. Abraham Lincoln understood this last mentioned motivation and gave his life for it. The primary information any political scientist needs to ascertain regarding the diagnosis of a particular President's modus operandi is to first take an insightful and detailed look at the individual's past. The litmus test always being what would he or she be willing to sacrifice for the Nation. In the case of our current President, Donald John Trump, he abandoned a life of liberal luxury linked to self imposed limited responsibilities for an intensely grueling, veritably non stop two year nightmare of criss crossing this immense Country's varied terrain, both literally and socially when he could have easily maintained his life of liberal leisure. While my assertion that his personal choice was, in my view, sacrificially done for the sake of a great power in a state of rapid decline can be contradicted by saying it was motivated by selfish reasons, all evidence points to the contrary. For knowing the human condition, fraught with a plentitude of weaknesses, for a man in the end portion of his lifetime to sacrifice an easy life for a hard working incessant schedule of thankless tasks it is entirely doubtful that this choice was made devoid of a special and even exalted inspiration to do so. And while the right motivations are pivotal to a President's success, what is also obviously needed are generic and specific political, military and ministerial skills which must be naturally endowed by Our Creator upon the particular President elected for the purposes of advancing a Nation's general well being for one and all. If one looks at the latest National statistics since President Trump took office, (such as our rising GNP, the booming market, the dramatically shrinking unemployment rate, and the overall positive emotive strains in regards to our Nation's future, on both the left and the right) one can make definitive objective conclusions pertaining to the exceptionally noble character and efficiency of the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And if one can drown out the constant communicative assaults on our current Commander In Chief, and especially if one can honestly assess the remarkable lack of substantial mistakes made by the current President, all of these factors point to a leader who is impressively strong, morally and in other imperative ways. And at the most propitious time. For the main reason that so many people in our Republic palpably despise our current President is that his political and especially his social agenda directly threatens their licentious way of life. - John Lars Zwerenz

Dear Net-Mail User [ EweR-635-78-2267-3 aSp]: Your mailbox has just been rifled by EmilyPost, an autonomous courtesy-worm chain program released in October 2036 by an anonymous group of net subscribers in western Alaska. [ ref: sequestered confession 592864-2376298.98634, deposited with Bank Leumi 10/23/36:20:34:21. Expiration-disclosure 10 years.] Under the civil disobedience sections of the Charter of Rio, we accept in advance the fines and penalties that will come due when our confession is released in 2046. However we feel that’s a small price to pay for the message brought to you by EmilyPost. In brief, dear friend, you are not a very polite person. EmilyPost’s syntax analysis subroutines show that a very high fraction of your Net exchanges are heated, vituperative, even obscene. Of course you enjoy free speech. But EmilyPost has been designed by people who are concerned about the recent trend toward excessive nastiness in some parts of the Net. EmilyPost homes in on folks like you and begins by asking them to please consider the advantages of politeness. For one thing, your credibility ratings would rise. (EmilyPost has checked your favorite bulletin boards, and finds your ratings aren’t high at all. Nobody is listening to you, sir!) Moreover, consider that courtesy can foster calm reason, turning shrill antagonism into useful debate and even consensus. We suggest introducing an automatic delay to your mail system. Communications are so fast these days, people seldom stop and think. Some Net users act like mental patients who shout out anything that comes to mind, rather than as functioning citizens with the human gift of tact. If you wish, you may use one of the public-domain delay programs included in this version of EmilyPost, free of charge. Of course, should you insist on continuing as before, disseminating nastiness in all directions, we have equipped EmilyPost with other options you’ll soon find out about…

The beginning of our acquaintance with the outside world is not only sensory but is entirely subjective. For a long time we know only a sensorial subjective reality. We are not, however, alone: always we are in communication with other human beings—parents, teachers, etc. Without ever stopping to think about it, we behave as if all these others share the same subjective reality as we. There are as many subjective realities as there are subjects. The one thing that is common to all these subjective realities is the one reality we use in communicating with one another: the one “objective” reality for all of us. But, apart from this, there is obviously a third reality. This is Reality—with a capital R—that is understood to exist whether you and I are alive or whether we know it or ignore it. This is the Reality which must exist and must be there, whether men exist or not. When we use our thinking, and not only our sensing, we realize that this third Reality is more than likely the first. This Reality is immensely complex and is only very superficially known, either to science or philosophy or in music or poetry. But our sense of self-importance makes us believe that our subjective reality is just as valid. The “objective” reality is, finally, that part of our subjective reality which we are willing to concede to our fellow men. I can see that you can see and that you can read, but I can never believe that you can see as I can, or understand what you read as I do, even though logic forces me to recognize I must be wrong and have no grounds for thinking in this way. My subjective reality is mine entirely and follows all my whims. “Objective” reality is less whimsical: it is the reality experienced by all men. It limits and restricts your and my subjective reality to that upon which all others agree. Subjective reality is anchored in us and is as real as our bodies. Objective reality is the measure of our sanity. But Reality has never as yet been perceived in its entirety. Our belief that we know Reality is an illusion, a maya; it is a measure of our ignorance.

These four changes—in the nature of work, education, social values, and communication technology—make it harder for dictators to dominate citizens in the old way. Harsh laws and bureaucratic regulations provoke furious responses from previously docile groups. These groups have new skills and networks that help them resist. At the same time, violent repression and comprehensive censorship destroy the innovation now central to progress. Eventually, the expansion of the highly educated, creative class, with its demands for self-expression and participation, makes it difficult to resist a move to some form of democracy. But so long as this class is not too large and the leader has the resources to co-opt or censor its members, an alternative is spin dictatorship. At least for a while, the ruler can buy off the informed with government contracts and privileges. So long as they stay loyal, he can tolerate their niche magazines, websites, and international networking events. He can even hire the creative types to design an alternative reality for the masses. This strategy will not work against a Sakharov. But Sakharovs are rare. With a modern, centrally controlled mass media, they pose little threat. Co-opting the informed takes resources. When these run low, spin dictators turn to censorship, which is often cheaper. They need not censor everything. All that really matters is to stop opposition media reaching a mass audience. And here the uneven dynamics of cultural change help. Early in the postindustrial era, most people still have industrial-era values. They are conformist and risk averse. The less educated are alienated from the creative types by resentment, economic anxiety, and attachment to tradition. Spin dictators can exploit these sentiments, rallying the remaining workers against the “counterculture” while branding the intellectuals as disloyal, sacrilegious, or sexually deviant. Such smears inoculate the leader’s base against opposition revelations. As long as the informed are not too strong, manipulation works well. Dictators can resist political demands without destroying the creative economy or revealing their own brutality to the public.

Cansrel could sit with Fire and do something no one else could: give her lessons to improve the skill of her mind. They could communicate without saying a word, they could touch each other from opposite ends of the house. Fire’s true father was like her—was, in fact, the only person in the world like her. He always asked the same question when he first arrived: “My darling monster girl! Was anyone mean to you while I was gone?” Mean? Children threw stones at her in the road. She was tripped sometimes, slapped, taunted. People who liked her hugged her, but they hugged her too hard and were too free with their hands. And still, Fire learned very young to answer no to his question—to lie, and to guard her mind from him so he wouldn’t know she was lying. This was the beginning of another of her confusions, that she would want his visits so much but fall immediately to lying once he came. When she was four she had a dog she’d chosen from a litter born in Brocker’s stables. She chose him, and Brocker let her have him, because the dog had three functional legs and one that dragged, and would never be any use as a worker. He was inky gray and had bright eyes. Fire called him Twy, which was short for Twilight. Twy was a happy, slightly brainless fellow with no idea he was missing something other dogs had. He was excitable, he jumped around a lot, and had a tendency on occasion to nip his favorite people. And nothing worked him into a greater frenzy of excitement, anxiety, joy, and terror than the presence of Cansrel. One day in the garden Cansrel burst upon Fire and Twy unexpectedly. In confusion, Twy leapt against Fire and bit her more than nipped her, so hard that she cried out. Cansrel ran to her, dropped to his knees, and took her into his arms, letting her fingers bleed all over his shirt. “Fire! Are you all right?” She clung to him, because for just a moment Twy had scared her. But then, as her own mind cleared, she saw and felt Twy throwing himself against a pitch of sharp stone, over and over. “Stop, Father! Stop it!” Cansrel pulled a knife from his belt and advanced on the dog. Fire shrieked and grabbed at him. “Don’t hurt him, Father, please! Can’t you feel that he didn’t mean it?

The emphasis was on “soft.” No matter what else happened, the wranglers were to stay soft while riding the horses. Soft hands, soft seat, and soft legs. There was to be absolutely no hitting, kicking, slapping, or yelling at any time for any reason. The penalty for doing such things was to be placed on a two-day suspension. A second offense would lead to termination. Neither penalty was ever needed. At times it wasn’t easy to stay quiet with the horses because so many of them had been “used up” over the years, dulled to any form of cue. However, we remained consistent in our focus and the horses responded. The wranglers were instructed to ride the horses with the softest cues possible, often using nothing more than a light squeeze to get forward movement and a shift of weight in the saddle, along with light pressure on the reins, for a stop. They were also instructed to look for, find, and then release their cues at the slightest try from the horse—something they all became very adept at doing. With everyone riding in the same manner from one day to the next, all the horses began to respond within a few weeks. Before we knew it, all of our horses, including the very old ones that had been in the program for years and years, became responsive to the lightest of cues. We’d taught our horses to be responsive to these light cues, but a question remained. How could we keep them that way, particularly with the hundreds of different people who would be riding each horse over the summer? The answer was simple. Everyone needed to remain consistent. So, instead of expecting our horses to respond to the conflicting cues that each new rider was bound to give, we taught each rider how to communicate with our horses. Each week when a new batch of guests arrived at the ranch, we held an orientation in the riding arena. During this orientation, we explained how our horses were trained and what was expected of them as a rider of one of our horses. We gave them a demonstration in the saddle of proper seat and hand position, so they could keep their balance. We showed them the cues for walk, stop, trot, lope, and turn, using a horse right out of the string. Once we had demonstrated how our horses worked, we got everyone on horseback in the arena and helped them to practice giving the cues, allowing the horse to respond, and releasing the cues so that the horse would remain responsive. Of note is the fact that after

One breath, the study was intact. The next, it was shards of nothing, a shell of a room. None of it had touched me from where I had dropped to the floor, my hands over my head. Tamlin was panting, the ragged breaths almost like sobs. I was shaking- shaking so hard I thought my bones would splinter as the furniture had- but I made myself lower my arms and look at him. That was devastation on that face. And pain. And fear. And grief. Around me, no debris had fallen- as if he had shielded me. Tamlin took a step toward me, over that invisible demarcation. He recoiled as if he'd hit something solid. 'Feyre,,' he rasped. He stepped again- and that line held. 'Feyre, please,' he breathed. And I realised that the line, that bubble of protection... It was from me. A shield. Not just a mental one- but a physical one, too. ... 'Feyre,' Tamlin groaned a third time, pushing a hand against what indeed looked like an invisible, curved wall of hardened air. 'Please. Please.' Those words cracked something in me. Cracked me open. Perhaps they cracked that shield of solid wind as well, for his hand shot through it. Then he stepped over that line between chaos and order, danger and safety. He dropped to his knees, taking my face in his hands. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry.' I couldn't stop trembling. 'I'll try,' he breathed. 'I'll try to be better. I don't... I can't control it sometimes. The rage. Today was just... today was bad. With the Tithe, with all of it. Today- let's forget it, let's just move past it. Please.' I didn't fight as he slid his arms around me, tucking me in tightly enough that his warmth soaked through me. He buried his face in my neck and said onto my nape, as if the words would be absorbed by my body, as if he could only say it the way we'd always been good at communicating- skin to skin, 'I couldn't save you before. I couldn't protect you from them. And when you said that, about... about me drowning you... Am I any better than they were?' I should have told him it wasn't true, but... I had spoken with my heart. Or what was left of it. 'I'll try to be better,' he said again. 'Please- give me more time. Let me... let me get through this. Please.' Get through what? I wanted to ask. But words had abandoned me. I realised I hadn't spoken yet. Realised he was waiting for an answer- and that I didn't have one. So I put my arms around him, because body to body was the only way I could speak, too. It was answer enough. 'I'm sorry,' he said again. He didn't stop murmuring it for minutes. You've given enough, Feyre. Perhaps he was right. And perhaps I didn't have anything left to give, anyway. I looked over his shoulder as I held him. The red paint had splattered on the wall behind us. And as I watched it slide down the cracked wood panelling, I thought it looked like blood.

In respect to the employment of troops, ground may be classified as dispersive, frontier, key, communicating, focal, serious, difficult, encircled, and death. When a feudal lord fights in his own territory, he is in dispersive ground. Here officers and men long to return to their nearby homes. When he makes but a shallow penetration into enemy territory he is in frontier ground. Ground equally advantageous for the enemy or me to occupy is key ground. Ground equally accessible to both the enemy and me is communicating. This is level and extensive ground in which one may come and go, sufficient in extent for battle and to erect opposing fortifications. When a state is enclosed by three other states its territory is focal. He who first gets control of it will gain the support of All-under-Heaven. When the army has penetrated deep into hostile territory, leaving far behind many enemy cities and towns, it is in serious ground. When the army traverses mountains, forests, precipitous country, or marches through defiles, marshlands, or swamps, or any place where the going is hard, it is in difficult ground. Ground to which access is constricted, where the way out is tortuous, and where a small enemy force can strike my larger one is called 'encircled.' Ground in which the army survives only if it fights with the courage of desperation is called 'death.' Therefore, do not fight in dispersive ground; do not stop in the frontier borderlands. Do not attack an enemy who occupies key ground; in communicating ground do not allow your formations to become separated. In focal ground, ally with neighboring states; in deep ground, plunder. In difficult ground, press on; in encircled ground, devise stratagems; in death ground, fight. In dispersive ground I would unify the determination of the army. In frontier ground I would keep my forces closely linked. In key ground I would hasten up my rear elements. In communicating ground I would pay strict attention to my defenses. In focal ground I would strengthen my alliances. I reward my prospective allies with valuables and silks and bind them with solemn covenants. I abide firmly by the treaties and then my allies will certainly aid me. In serious ground I would ensure a continuous flow of provisions. In difficult ground I would press on over the roads. In encircled ground I would block the points of access and egress. It is military doctrine that an encircling force must leave a gap to show the surrounded troops there is a way out, so that they will not be determined to fight to the death. Then, taking advantage of this, strike. Now, if I am in encircled ground, and the enemy opens a road in order to tempt my troops to take it, I close this means of escape so that my officers and men will have a mind to fight to the death. In death ground I could make it evident that there is no chance of survival. For it is the nature of soldiers to resist when surrounded; to fight to the death when there is no alternative, and when desperate to follow commands implicitly.

I," she told him, "can believe anything. You have no idea what I can believe." "Really?" "I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkledy lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state to state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the Martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in this universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, life is a cruel joke and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath. Shadow almost took his hands off the wheel to applaud.

My darling son: depression at your age is more common than you might think. I remember it very strongly in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when I was about twenty-six and felt like killing myself. I think the winter, the cold, the lack of sunshine, for us tropical creatures, is a trigger. And to tell you the truth, the idea that you might soon unpack your bags here, having chucked in all your European plans, makes your mother and me as happy as could be. You have more than earned the equivalent of any university 'degree' and you have used your time so well to educate yourself culturally and personally that if university bores you, it is only natural. Whatever you do from here on in, whether you write or don't write, whether you get a degree or not, whether you work for your mother, or at El Mundo, or at La Ines, or teaching at a high school, or giving lectures like Estanislao Zuleta, or as a psychoanalyst to your parents, sisters and relatives, or simply being Hector Abad Faciolince, will be fine. What matters is that you don't stop being what you have been up till now, a person, who simply by virtue of being the way you are, not for what you write or don't write, or for being brilliant or prominent, but just for being the way you are, has earned the affection, the respect, the acceptance, the trust, the love, of the vast majority of those who know you. So we want to keep seeing you in this way, not as a future great author, or journalist or communicator or professor or poet, but as the son, brother, relative, friend, humanist, who understands others and does not aspire to be understood. It does not matter what people think of you, and gaudy decoration doesn't matter, for those of us who know you are. For goodness' sake, dear Quinquin, how can you think 'we support you (...) because 'that boy could go far'? You have already gone very far, further than all our dreams, better than everything we imagined for any of our children. You should know very well that your mother's and my ambitions are not for glory, or for money, or even for happiness, that word that sounds so pretty but is attained so infrequently and for such short intervals (and maybe for that very reason is so valued), for all our children, but that they might at least achieve well-being, that more solid, more durable, more possible, more attainable word. We have often talked of the anguish of Carlos Castro Saavedra, Manuel Meija Vallejo, Rodrigo Arenas Betancourt, and so many quasi-geniuses we know. Or Sabato or Rulfo, or even Garcia Marquez. That does not matter. Remember Goethe: 'All theory (I would add, and all art), dear friend, is grey, but only the golden tree of life springs ever green.' What we want for you is to 'live'. And living means many better things than being famous, gaining qualifications or winning prizes. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. I think I too had boundless political ambitions when I was young and that's why I wasn't happy. Only now, when all that has passed, have I felt really happy. And part of that happiness is Cecilia, you, and all my children and grandchildren. Only the memory of Marta Cecilia tarnishes it. I believe things are that simple, after having gone round and round in circles, complicating them so much. We should do away with this love for things as ethereal as fame, glory, success... Well, my Quinquin, now you know what I think of you and your future. There's no need for you to worry. You are doing just fine and you'll do better, and when you get to my age or your grandfather's age and you can enjoy the scenery around La Ines that I intend to leave to all of you, with the sunshine, heat and lush greenery, and you'll see I was right. Don't stay there longer than you feel you can. If you want to come back I'll welcome you with open arms. And if you regret it and want to go back again, we can buy you another return flight. A kiss from your father.

If a ship landed in my yard and LGMs stepped out, I’d push past their literature and try to find the cable that dropped the saucer on my roses. Lack of a cable or any significant burning to the flowers, I’d then grab a hammer and start knocking about in the ship till I was convinced that nothing said “Intel Inside.” Then when I discovered a “Flux Capacitor” type thing I would finally stop and say, “Hey, cool gadget!” Assuming the universal benevolence of the LGMs, I’d yank it out and demand from the nearest "Grey” (they are the tall nice ones), “where the hell did this come from?” Greys don’t talk, they communicate via telepathy, so I’d ignore the voice inside my head. Then stepping outside the saucer and sitting in a lawn chair, I’d throw pebbles at the aliens till I was sure they were solid. Then I’d look down at the “Flux Capacitor” and make sure it hadn’t morphed into my bird feeder. Finally, with proof in my hand and aliens sitting on my deck (they’d be offered beers, though I’ve heard that they absorb energy like a plant) I’d grab my cell phone and tell my doctor that I’m having a serious manic episode with full-blown visual hallucinations.

Become a junk mail detective. • Commercial catalogs: Go to CatalogChoice.org (they cancel catalogs for you) or call the catalogs directly. I opted out and I have never been happier with my personal sense of decorating and celebrating. • First-class mail: Do not open the unwanted letter. Its postage includes return service; you can write “Refused—Return to sender” and “Take me off your mailing list” on the front of the unopened envelope. I keep a pen in my mailbox for that specific purpose. • Mail addressed to the previous resident: Fill out a U.S. Postal Service change-of-address card for each previous resident. In lieu of a new address, write: “Moved, no forwarding address.” In the signature area, sign your name and write “Form filled by current resident of home [your name], agent for the above.” Hand the form to your carrier or postal clerk. • For standard/ third-class presorted mail: Do not open those that mention “return service requested,” “forwarding service requested,” “change service requested,” or “address service requested.” These postages also include return service, so here, too, you can write “Refused—Return to sender” and “Take me off your mailing list” on the front of an unopened envelope. Otherwise, open the letter, look for contact info, then call/ email/ write to be taken off the mailing list. These items typically include promotional flyers, brochures, and coupon packs. Make sure to also request that your name or address not be sold, rented, shared, or traded. • Bulk mail: Inexpensive bulk mailing, used for items such as community education catalogs, allows advertisers to mail to all homes in a carrier route. It is not directly addressed to a specific name or address but to “local” or “postal customer,” and is therefore most difficult to stop. A postal supervisor told me that my carrier had to deliver them and that he could take them back when refused, but since the postage does not include return service, the mailman would simply throw the mail away with no further action. The best way to reduce the production of such mailings is to contact the senders directly and convince them to either choose a different type of postage or adopt Internet communication instead. In the case of community-born mailing, one could also persuade his/ her city council to boycott the postage preference. But ideally, the U.S. Postal Service would not even provide this wasteful option.

When planning your team’s activities, create a “Stop Doing List” in addition to all of the new work you must perform to execute your plan. Identify those activities, tasks, reports, meetings and projects that do not directly support your One Thing. Interestingly, your “Stop Doing List” often has a bigger impact on your team’s ability to focus than the list of “To Do’s.” Saying “Yes” to one thing always means saying “No” to something else. Your time, energy and money are precious resources - if you spend them in one area, they are not available to be spent in another area. Communicating this message deep into your team enables employees to say “No” to non-value-added tasks and stay focused on executing your plan.