“
One who will not accept solitude, stillness and quiet recurring moments...is caught up in the wilderness of addictions; far removed from an original state of being and awareness. This is 'dis-ease.
”
”
T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
“
I must say that, beyond occasionally exposing me to laughter, my constitutional shyness has been no dis-advantage whatever. In fact I can see that, on the contrary, it has been all to my advantage. My hesitancy in speech, which was once an annoyance, is now a pleasure. Its greatest benefit has been that it has taught me the economy of words. I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. And I can now give myself the certificate that a thoughtless word hardly ever escapes my tongue or pen. I do not recollect ever having had to regret anything in my speech or writing. I have thus been spared many a mishap and waste of time. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. Proneness to exaggerate, to suppress or modify the truth, wittingly or unwittingly, is a natural weakness of man, and silence is necessary in order to surmount it. A man of few words will rarely be thoughtless in his speech; he will measure every word. We find so many people impatient to talk. There is no chairman of a meeting who is not pestered with notes for permission to speak. And whenever the permission is given the speaker generally exceeds the time-limit, asks for more time, and keeps on talking without permission. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.
”
”
Mahatma Gandhi
“
Peace is not so much a political mandate as it is a shared state of consciousness that remains elevated and intact only to the degree that those who value it volunteer their existence as living examples of the same... Peace ends with the unraveling of individual hope and the emergence of the will to worship violence as a healer of private and social dis-ease.
”
”
Aberjhani (The American Poet Who Went Home Again)
“
Where is the graveyard of dead gods? What lingering mourner waters their mounds? There was a time when Jupiter was the king of the gods, and any man who doubted his puissance was ipso facto a barbarian and an ignoramus. But where in all the world is there a man who worships Jupiter today? And who of Huitzilopochtli? In one year - and it is no more than five hundred years ago - 50,000 youths and maidens were slain in sacrifice to him. Today, if he is remembered at all, it is only by some vagrant savage in the depths of the Mexican forest. Huitzilopochtli, like many other gods, had no human father; his mother was a virtuous widow; he was born of an apparently innocent flirtation that she carried out with the sun.
When he frowned, his father, the sun, stood still. When he roared with rage, earthquakes engulfed whole cities. When he thirsted he was watered with 10,000 gallons of human blood. But today Huitzilopochtli is as magnificently forgotten as Allen G. Thurman. Once the peer of Allah, Buddha and Wotan, he is now the peer of Richmond P. Hobson, Alton B. Parker, Adelina Patti, General Weyler and Tom Sharkey.
Speaking of Huitzilopochtli recalls his brother Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca was almost as powerful; he consumed 25,000 virgins a year.
Lead me to his tomb: I would weep, and hang a couronne des perles. But who knows where it is? Or where the grave of Quetzalcoatl is? Or Xiuhtecuhtli? Or Centeotl, that sweet one? Or Tlazolteotl, the goddess of love? Of Mictlan? Or Xipe? Or all the host of Tzitzimitl? Where are their bones? Where is the willow on which they hung their harps? In what forlorn and unheard-of Hell do they await their resurrection morn? Who enjoys their residuary estates? Or that of Dis, whom Caesar found to be the chief god of the Celts? Of that of Tarves, the bull? Or that of Moccos, the pig? Or that of Epona, the mare? Or that of Mullo, the celestial jackass? There was a time when the Irish revered all these gods, but today even the drunkest Irishman laughs at them.
But they have company in oblivion: the Hell of dead gods is as crowded
as the Presbyterian Hell for babies. Damona is there, and Esus, and
Drunemeton, and Silvana, and Dervones, and Adsullata, and Deva, and
Bellisima, and Uxellimus, and Borvo, and Grannos, and Mogons. All mighty gods in their day, worshipped by millions, full of demands and impositions, able to bind and loose - all gods of the first class. Men labored for generations to build vast temples to them - temples with stones as large as hay-wagons.
The business of interpreting their whims occupied thousands of priests,
bishops, archbishops. To doubt them was to die, usually at the stake.
Armies took to the field to defend them against infidels; villages were burned, women and children butchered, cattle were driven off. Yet in the end they all withered and died, and today there is none so poor to do them reverence.
What has become of Sutekh, once the high god of the whole Nile Valley? What has become of:
Resheph
Anath
Ashtoreth
El
Nergal
Nebo
Ninib
Melek
Ahijah
Isis
Ptah
Anubis
Baal
Astarte
Hadad
Addu
Shalem
Dagon
Sharaab
Yau
Amon-Re
Osiris
Sebek
Molech?
All there were gods of the highest eminence. Many of them are mentioned with fear and trembling in the Old Testament. They ranked, five or six thousand years ago, with Yahweh Himself; the worst of them stood far higher than Thor. Yet they have all gone down the chute, and with them the following:
Bilé
Ler
Arianrhod
Morrigu
Govannon
Gunfled
Sokk-mimi
Nemetona
Dagda
Robigus
Pluto
Ops
Meditrina
Vesta
You may think I spoof. That I invent the names. I do not. Ask the rector to lend you any good treatise on comparative religion: You will find them all listed. They were gods of the highest standing and dignity-gods of civilized peoples-worshiped and believed in by millions. All were omnipotent, omniscient and immortal.
And all are dead.
”
”
H.L. Mencken (A Mencken Chrestomathy)
“
The psyche cannot tolerate a vacuum of love. In the severely abused or deprived child, pain, dis-ease, and violance rush in to fill the void. In the average person in our culture, who has been only "normally" deprived of touch, anxiety and an insatiable hunger for posessions replace the missing eros. The child lacking a sense of welcome, joyous belonging, gratuitous security, will learn to hoard the limited supply of affection. According to the law of psychic compensation, not being held leads to holding on, grasping, addiction, posessiveness. Gradually, things replace people as a source of pleasure and security. When the gift of belonging with is denied, the child learns that love means belongin to. To the degree we are arrested at this stage of development, the needy child will dominate our motivations. Other people and things (and there is fundamentally no difference) will be seen as existing solely for the purpose of "my" survival and satisfaction. "Mine" will become the most important word.
”
”
Sam Keen (The Passionate Life: Stages of Loving)
“
DEAR DIARY
You are greater than the Bible
And the Conference of the Birds
And the Upanishads
All put together
You are more severe
Than the Scriptures
And Hammurabi’s Code
More dangerous than Luther’s paper
Nailed to the Cathedral door
You are sweeter
Than the Song of Songs
Mightier by far
Than the Epic of Gilgamesh
And braver
Than the Sagas of Iceland
I bow my head in gratitude
To the ones who give their lives
To keep the secret
The daily secret
Under lock and key
Dear Diary
I mean no disrespect
But you are more sublime
Than any Sacred Text
Sometimes just a list
Of my events
Is holier than the Bill of Rights
And more intense
”
”
Leonard Cohen (Book of Longing)
“
Never listen to fools who dis Jane Eyre as being a story about a girl who gets her mean man. This is a character who gets what she wants and lives on her own terms by having moral fortitude, intelligence, courage, imagination and a will of iron. And that is one hell of a checklist. Imagine Charlotte Brontë writing this book in 1847. What a powerful story for women living at that time!
”
”
Fiona Wood (Cloudwish (The Six Impossiverse #3))
“
Sociopathy stands alone as a “disease” that causes no dis-ease for the person who has it, no subjective discomfort. Sociopaths are often quite satisfied with themselves and with their lives, and perhaps for this very reason there is no effective “treatment.
”
”
Martha Stout (The Sociopath Next Door)
“
Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word." He looked at an oil painting of his deceased wife. "For instance- I loved her more than I love our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crim-i-nay-tion.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater)
“
Did you see her?" the Marid said nervously, looking at her with great dark eyes. "Our daughter. Standing on the Gear. Dis you see her?"
"What?" said September—and then she winked out, like someone blowing out a candle, and all the field was still.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1))
“
Anyone wishing to affect events must be opportunist to some extent. The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.
”
”
Henry Kissinger
“
There is one class to whom reflection is a fault; is not only a fault, is a sin; is not only a sin, is an atrocity - who cannot bear to exist without their own existence dis-existencing somebody else's existence.
”
”
Dale Pendell
“
We need to be careful not to fall into the victim mindset. This usually happens because we have a dis-empowering perspective of the circumstance. We forget about “who we are” in Christ and that God is in control.
”
”
Michael Barbarulo
“
Silence speaks in vibes, not sentences. So stop repeating yourself to those who continue to dis your warning signals.
”
”
T.F. Hodge
“
Be willing for purpose; it pays huge returns on investment. And along the journey, those who dis your willing sacrifice(s) will ponder their own foolishness.
”
”
T.F. Hodge (From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph over Death and Conscious Encounters With the Divine Presence)
“
This feminine billboard of Middle-Eastern fashion stopped me on the street last month. She ran her hand over the seam of my jilbab, admiring the color and fabric. She only said a few words. 'We are living in a gender-quake, a modern sexodus. We have a duty to project dis female revolution in da way we dress. Come visit me at the Monkey Bar and tell me who tailors your outfits.' She's been my fashion role model ever since.
”
”
Michael Ben Zehabe (Persianality)
“
Anyone who (dis)likes G. W. Bush, but (dis)likes B. H. Obama, is either completely delusional or a complete idiot.
”
”
Michelle Templet
“
It was Anthony Marston who disagreed with the majority. 'A bit unsporting, what?' he said. 'Ought to ferret out the mystery before we go. Whole thing's like a detective story. Positively thrilling.' The judge said acidly: 'At my time of life, I have no desire for "thrills," as you call them.' Anthony said with a grin: 'The legal life's narrowing! I'm all for crime! Here's to it.' He picked up his drink and drank it off at a gulp. Too quickly, perhaps. He choked - choked badly. His face contorted, turned purple. He gasped for breath - then slid down off his chair, the glass falling from his hand.
”
”
Agatha Christie (And Then There Were None)
“
How do people get to this clandestine Archipelago? Hour by hour planes fly there, ships steer their course there, and trains thunder off to it--but all with nary a mark on them to tell of their destination. And at ticket windows or at travel bureaus for Soviet or foreign tourists the employees would be astounded if you were to ask for a ticket to go there. They know nothing and they've never heard of the Archipelago as a whole or any one of its innumerable islands.
Those who go to the Archipelago to administer it get there via the training schools of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Those who go there to be guards are conscripted via the military conscription centers.
And those who, like you and me, dear reader, go there to die, must get there solely and compulsorily via arrest.
Arrest! Need it be said that it is a breaking point in your life, a bolt of lightning which has scored a direct hit on you? That it is an unassimilable spiritual earthquake not every person can cope with, as a result of which people often slip into insanity?
The Universe has as many different centers as there are living beings in it. Each of us is a center of the Universe, and that Universe is shattered when they hiss at you: "You are under arrest."
If you are arrested, can anything else remain unshattered by this cataclysm?
But the darkened mind is incapable of embracing these displacements in our universe, and both the most sophisticated and the veriest simpleton among us, drawing on all life's experience,
can gasp out only: "Me? What for?"
And this is a question which, though repeated millions and
millions of times before, has yet to receive an answer.
Arrest is an instantaneous, shattering thrust, expulsion, somersault from one state into another.
We have been happily borne—or perhaps have unhappily
dragged our weary way—down the long and crooked streets of
our lives, past all kinds of walls and fences made of rotting wood,
rammed earth, brick, concrete, iron railings. We have never given
a thought to what lies behind them. We have never tried to penetrate them with our vision or our understanding. But there is
where the Gulag country begins, right next to us, two yards away
from us. In addition, we have failed to notice an enormous number of closely fitted, well-disguised doors and gates in these
fences. All those gates were prepared for us, every last one! And
all of a sudden the fateful gate swings quickly open, and four
white male hands, unaccustomed to physical labor but nonetheless strong and tenacious, grab us by the leg, arm, collar, cap,
ear, and drag us in like a sack, and the gate behind us, the gate to
our past life, is slammed shut once and for all.
That's all there is to it! You are arrested!
And you'll find nothing better to respond with than a lamblike
bleat: "Me? What for?"
That's what arrest is: it's a blinding flash and a blow which
shifts the present instantly into the past and the impossible into
omnipotent actuality.
That's all. And neither for the first hour nor for the first day
will you be able to grasp anything else.
”
”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation V-VII)
“
Bullying has its root cause in the need for adoration. If adoration is not fulfilled, the bully seeks to control a group through deceit and punishment of the individual who is perceived as being Non-Conforming. Adoration is a form of comfort. Take away the comfort, you dis-empower the bully.
”
”
Deborah Bravandt
“
If ever I create a website, I'll call it Two-Face Book, and I'll invite everyone to it, it will be a game board, of a whitewash chalkboard.
A social network, with reserved intentions, where we can fall into our cliques and circle of friends. We can dis who we want and accept who appeals to our discretion. Where the users will keep abusing, and abusers keep using, where the computer bullies will keep swinging and the J-birds that fly by will die; where the lonely will keep seeking and the needy still go desperate, where the envious will keep hating, and the lustful will keep flashing. Where those that think ignoring, will keep one down and the wannabes will foolishly think themselves greater by the number of "likes" that pours caffeine into their coffee. We can jump on the bandwagon of likes, or reserve not to show we care. Where the scorners, scammers and stalkers lay wait to take hold of the innocent and fragile, and my pockets will get fatter as more and more will join up, where being fake is accepted. As a mirror that stares at a different face. It will be my two-face epilogue, in a 3-world dimension, of a twofold war. I will build an empire of contagious hooks, and still we will live, happily-ever disastrous.
”
”
Anthony Liccione
“
Oh my, did you just dis the president of China?” Rachel asked.
Did I? Oh well, who cares? You’re far more important.” Nick laughed
”
”
Kevin Kwan (Rich People Problems (Crazy Rich Asians, #3))
“
In New York—the New York of her own time, at least—they would have been objects of scorn and anger, the butt of every idiot’s crude, cruel jokes: a black woman of twenty-six and her whitebread lover who was three years younger and who had a tendency to talk like dis and dat when he got excited. Her whitebread lover who had been carrying a heavy monkey on his back only eight months before. Here, there was no one to jeer or laugh. Here, no one was pointing a finger. Here, there were only Roland, Eddie, and herself, the world’s last three gunslingers.
”
”
Stephen King (The Waste Lands (The Dark Tower, #3))
“
JANUARY, JANUARY, WHEREFORE ART THOU, JANUARY? The message was ironic. The butterflies in my chest were not. I pushed the box onto the table and grabbed my notebook, scribbling in it. I held the note up. New phone who dis?
”
”
Emily Henry (Beach Read)
“
Neoliberalism has become a dirty world. In political dis-course, it stigmatizes a political opponent as market fundamentalist; in academia, the concept is also mainly wielded by its critics, while those who might be seen as actual neoliberals deny its very existence.
”
”
Thomas Biebricher (The Political Theory of Neoliberalism (Currencies: New Thinking for Financial Times))
“
The word is dissociate. There is no 'a' before the 'ss'. People invariably say dis-a-ssociate, which, if you're suffering Disso-ciative Identity Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder, can be irritating. People then want to know how many personalities I have and the answer is: I don't know. The first book about Multiple Personality Disorder to make an impact was Flora Rheta Schreiber's Sybil, published in 1973, which carries the subtitle: The True and Extraordinary Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Separate Personalities. Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley published the controversial The Three Faces of Eve much earlier in 1957, and Pete Townshend from The Who wrote the song 'Four Faces'. People seem to feel safe with numbers.
The truth is more complicated. The kids emerged over time. Billy, the boisterous five-year-old, was at first the most dominant. But he slowly stood aside for JJ, the self-confident ten-year-old who appears when Alice is under stress and handles complicated situations like travelling on the Underground and meeting new people. The first entity to visit was the external voice of the Professor. But he had a choir of accomplices without names. So, how many actual alter personalities are there? I would say more than fifteen and less than thirty, a combination of protectors, persecutors and friends - my own family tree.
”
”
Alice Jamieson (Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind)
“
It only made me sicker. But dis sickness was different than the first—the first had to do wid losing someone I cared for and who cared for me. The second had to do wid losing myself. But it worked. Because I couldn’t hurt no more. I could no longer feel. It’s been easier that way.
”
”
Nicole Dennis-Benn
“
How do I know I’m in love if I don’t want to kill myself all the time? Mavis is the nicest person I’ve ever met, and it was hard to recognize I was in love with her because she never let so much time elapse between “hey wats up winky-face emoji” texts that I had deleted her number and had to respond, “NEW PHONE WHO DIS.
”
”
Samantha Irby (We Are Never Meeting in Real Life.)
“
But you'll see producers and theatre owners with a billion dollars worth of theaters come in here for lunch and you know why? Because it's cheap. You see those pictures on the wall? All young actors and actresses who you will never hear about in your life... And when 'dis place is gone, the entire Broadway will slide into the East River.
”
”
Neil Simon (45 Seconds from Broadway)
“
There is within us—in even the blithest, most lighthearted among us—a fundamental dis-ease. It acts like an unquenchable fire that renders the vast majority of us incapable in this life of ever coming to full peace. This desire lies in the marrow of our bones and the deep regions of our souls. All great literature, poetry, art, philosophy, psychology, and religion tries to name and analyze this longing. We are seldom in direct touch with it, and indeed the modern world seems set on preventing us from getting in touch with it by covering it with an unending phantasmagoria of entertainments, obsessions, addictions, and distractions of every sort. But the longing is there, built into us like a jack-in-the-box that presses for release. Two great paintings suggest this longing in their titles—Gauguin’s Who Are We? Where Did We Come From? Where Are We Going? and de Chirico’s Nostalgia for the Infinite—but I must work with words. Whether we realize it or not, simply to be human is to long for release from mundane existence, with its confining walls of finitude and mortality.
”
”
Huston Smith (Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief)
“
She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d really chosen. We weren’t in each other’s lives because of any obligation to the past or convenience of the present. We had no shared history and we had no reason to spend all our time to gether. But we did. Our friendship intensified as all our friends had children – she, like me, was unconvinced about having kids. And she, like me, found herself in a relationship in her early thirties where they weren’t specifically working towards starting a family.
By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Every time there was another pregnancy announcement from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And another one!’ and she’d know what I meant.
She became the person I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, because she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink without planning it a month in advance. Our friendship made me feel liberated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sympathy or concern for her. If I could admire her decision to remain child-free, I felt encouraged to admire my own. She made me feel normal. As long as I had our friendship, I wasn’t alone and I had reason to believe I was on the right track.
We arranged to meet for dinner in Soho after work on a Friday. The waiter took our drinks order and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Martinis.
‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling water, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her uncharacteristic abstinence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m pregnant.’
I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imagine the expression on my face was particularly enthusiastic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an unwarranted but intense sense of betrayal. In a delayed reaction, I stood up and went to her side of the table to hug her, unable to find words of congratulations. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in vagaries about it ‘just being the right time’ and wouldn’t elaborate any further and give me an answer. And I needed an answer. I needed an answer more than anything that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a realization that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it.
When I woke up the next day, I realized the feeling I was experiencing was not anger or jealousy or bitterness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t really gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had disappeared and there was nothing they could do to change that. Unless I joined them in their spaces, on their schedules, with their families, I would barely see them.
And I started dreaming of another life, one completely removed from all of it. No more children’s birthday parties, no more christenings, no more barbecues in the suburbs. A life I hadn’t ever seriously contemplated before. I started dreaming of what it would be like to start all over again. Because as long as I was here in the only London I knew – middle-class London, corporate London, mid-thirties London, married London – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
So far from a political ideology being the quasi-divine parent of political activity, it turns out to be its earthly stepchild. Instead of an independently premeditated scheme of ends to be pursued, it is a system of ideas abstracted from the manner in which people have been accustomed to go about the business of attending to the arrangements of their societies. The pedigree of every political ideology shows it to be the creature, not of premeditation in advance of political activity, but of meditation upon a manner of politics. In short, political activity comes first and a political ideology follows after; and the understanding of politics we are investigating has the disadvantage of being, in the strict sense, preposterous.
Let us consider the matter first in relation to scientific hypothesis, which I have taken to play a role in scientific activity in some respects similar to that of an ideology in politics. If a scientific hypothesis were a self-generated bright idea which owed nothing to scientific activity, then empiricism governed by hypothesis could be considered to compose a self-contained manner of activity; but this certainly is not its character. The truth is that only a man who is already a scientist can formulate a scientific hypothesis; that is, an hypothesis is not an independent invention capable of guiding scientific inquiry, but a dependent supposition which arises as an abstraction from within already existing scientific activity. Moreover, even when the specific hypothesis has in this manner been formulated, it is inoperative as a guide to research without constant reference to the traditions of scientific inquiry from which it was abstracted. The concrete situation does not appear until the specific hypothesis, which is the occasion of empiricism being set to work, is recognized as itself the creature of owing how to conduct a scientific inquiry.
Or consider the example of cookery. It might be supposed that an ignorant man, some edible materials, and a cookery book compose together the necessities of a self-moved (or concrete) activity called cooking. But nothing is further from the truth. The cookery book is not an independently generated beginning from which cooking can spring; it is nothing more than an abstract of somebody's knowledge of how to cook: it is the stepchild, not the parent of the activity. The book, in its tum, may help to set a man on to dressing a dinner, but if it were his sole guide he could never, in fact, begin: the book speaks only to those who know already the kind of thing to expect from it and consequently bow to interpret it.
Now, just as a cookery book presupposes somebody who knows how to cook, and its use presupposes somebody who already knows how to use it, and just as a scientific hypothesis springs from a knowledge of how to conduct a scientific investigation and separated from that knowledge is powerless to set empiricism profitably to work, so a political ideology must be understood, not as an independently premeditated beginning for political activity, but as knowledge (abstract and generalized) of a concrete manner of attending to the arrangements of a society. The catechism which sets out the purposes to be pursued merely abridges a concrete manner of behaviour in which those purposes are already hidden. It does not exist in advance of political activity, and by itself it is always an insufficient guide. Political enterprises, the ends to be pursued, the arrangements to be established (all the normal ingredients of a political ideology), cannot be premeditated in advance of a manner of attending to the arrangements of a society; what we do, and moreover what we want to do, is the creature of how we are accustomed to conduct our affairs. Indeed, it often reflects no more than a discovered ability to do something which is then translated into an authority to do it.
”
”
Michael Oakeshott (Rationalism in Politics and other essays)
“
- Alors, ce que je dis, c'est que le cancer, c'est rien, Rakel. Tu vas mourir de honte aussi, et je te promets que ce sera pire que tout. Je veillerai personnellement à ce que toutes les saloperies que t'as faites soient étalées au grand jour, et que ce soit là tout le souvenir que tu laisseras. Tu vas crever dans ta propre merde.
”
”
David Lagercrantz (The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye (Millennium, #5))
“
Behold but One in all things; it is the second that leads you astray. Kabir That this insight into the nature of things and the origin of good and evil is not confined exclusively to the saint, but is recognized obscurely by every human being, is proved by the very structure of our language. For language, as Richard Trench pointed out long ago, is often “wiser, not merely than the vulgar, but even than the wisest of those who speak it. Sometimes it locks up truths which were once well known, but have been forgotten. In other cases it holds the germs of truths which, though they were never plainly discerned, the genius of its framers caught a glimpse of in a happy moment of divination.” For example, how significant it is that in the Indo-European languages, as Darmsteter has pointed out, the root meaning “two” should connote badness. The Greek prefix dys- (as in dyspepsia) and the Latin dis- (as in dishonorable) are both derived from “duo.” The cognate bis- gives a pejorative sense to such modern French words as bévue (“blunder,” literally “two-sight”). Traces of that “second which leads you astray” can be found in “dubious,” “doubt” and Zweifel—for to doubt is to be double-minded. Bunyan has his Mr. Facing-both-ways, and modern American slang its “two-timers.” Obscurely and unconsciously wise, our language confirms the findings of the mystics and proclaims the essential badness of division—a word, incidentally, in which our old enemy “two” makes another decisive appearance.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (The Perennial Philosophy: An Interpretation of the Great Mystics, East and West)
“
I worked for Marshall Field. That’s the World Book Company. And it was straight, up and down the line. No trade-ins, no deals, no dis- counts, no gimmicks, and we hired mostly teachers and preachers and housewives. So it was straight as an arrow.
It was a great job. Pure selling. No wheeling and dealing. World Book, no deals. No trade-ins, no discounts, no gimmicks, nothing — cash. Cash. Money up front.
”
”
James W. Murphy (Who Says You Can't Sell Ice to Eskimos?)
“
Man tends to regard the order he lives in as natural. The houses he passes on his way to work seem more like rocks rising out of the earth than like products of human hands. He considers the work he does in his office or factory as essential to the harmonious functioning of the world. The clothes he wears are exactly what they should be, and he laughs at the idea that he might equally well be wearing a Roman toga or medieval armor. He respects and envies a minister of state or a bank director, and regards the possession of a considerable amount of money the main guarantee of peace and security. He cannot believe that one day a rider may appear on a street he knows well, where cats sleep and children play, and start catching passers-by with his lasso. He is accustomed to satisfying those of his physiological needs which are considered private as discreetly as possible, without realizing that such a pattern of behavior is not common to all human societies. In a word, he behaves a little like Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush, bustling about in a shack poised precariously on the edge of a cliff.
His first stroll along a street littered with glass from bomb-shattered windows shakes his faith in the "naturalness" of his world. The wind scatters papers from hastily evacuated offices, papers labeled "Confidential" or "Top Secret" that evoke visions of safes, keys, conferences, couriers, and secretaries. Now the wind blows them through the street for anyone to read; yet no one does, for each man is more urgently concerned with finding a loaf of bread. Strangely enough, the world goes on even though the offices and secret files have lost all meaning. Farther down the street, he stops before a house split in half by a bomb, the privacy of people's homes-the family smells, the warmth of the beehive life, the furniture preserving the memory of loves and hatreds-cut open to public view. The house itself, no longer a rock, but a scaffolding of plaster, concrete, and brick; and on the third floor, a solitary white bath tub, rain-rinsed of all recollection of those who once bathed in it. Its formerly influential and respected owners, now destitute, walk the fields in search of stray potatoes. Thus overnight money loses its value and becomes a meaningless mass of printed paper. His walk takes him past a little boy poking a stick into a heap of smoking ruins and whistling a song about the great leader who will preserve the nation against all enemies. The song remains, but the leader of yesterday is already part of an extinct past.
”
”
Czesław Miłosz (The Captive Mind)
“
Hommes et femmes de Londres, me voici. Je vous félicite cordialement d'être anglais. Vous êtes un grand peuple. Je dis plus, vous êtes une grande populace. Vos coups de poing sont encore plus beaux que vos coups d'épée. Vous avez de l'appétit. Vous êtes la nation qui mange les autres. Fonction magnifique. Cette succion du monde classe à part l'Angleterre. Comme politique et philosophie, et maniement des colonies, populations, et industries, et comme volonté de faire aux autres du mal qui est pour soi du bien, vous êtes particuliers et surprenants. Le moment approche où il y aura sur la terre deux écriteaux; sur l'un on lira: Côté des hommes; sur l'autre on lira: Côté des anglais. Je constate ceci à votre gloire, moi qui ne suis ni anglais, ni homme, ayant l'honneur d'être un docteur. Cela va ensemble. Gentlemen, j'enseigne. Quoi? Deux espèces de choses, celles que je sais et celles que j'ignore. Je vends des drogues et je donne des idées. Approchez, et écoutez. La science vous y convie. Ouvrez votre oreille. Si elle est petite, elle tiendra peu de vérité; si elle est grande, beaucoup de stupidité y entrera. Donc, attention. J'enseigne la Pseudodoxia Epidemica. J'ai un
camarade qui fait rire, moi je fais penser.
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Man Who Laughs)
“
The Japanese psychiatrist Kimura Bin, director of the Psychiatric Hos- pital of Kyoto and translator of Binswanger, sought to deepen Heidegger’s anal- ysis of temporality in Being and Time with reference to a classification of the fundamental types of mental illness. To this end he made use of the Latin for- mula post festum (literally, “after the celebration”), which indicates an irreparable past, an arrival at things that are already done. Post festum is symmetrically dis- tinguished from ante festum (“before the celebration”) and intra festum (“during the celebration”).
Post festum temporality is that of the melancholic, who always experiences his own “I” in the form of an “I was,” of an irrecoverably accomplished past with respect to which one can only be in debt. This experience of time corresponds in Heidegger to Dasein’s Being-thrown, its finding itself always already abandoned to a factual situation beyond which it can never venture. There is thus a kind of constitutive “melancholy” of human Dasein, which is always late with respect to itself, having always already missed its “celebration.”
Ante festum temporality corresponds to the experience of the schizophrenic, in which the direction of the melancholic’s orientation toward the past is in- verted. For the schizophrenic, the “I” is never a certain possession; it is always something to be attained, and the schizophrenic therefore always lives time in the form of anticipation. “The ‘I’ of the schizophrenic,” Kimura Bin writes, “is not the ‘I’ of the ‘already been’; it is not tied to a duty. In other words, it is not the post festum ‘I’ of the melancholic, which can only be spoken of in terms of a past and a debt. . . . Instead, the essential point here is the problem of one’s own possibility of being oneself, the problem of the certainty of becoming oneself and, therefore, the risk of possibly being alienated from oneself” (Kimura Bin 1992: 79). In Being and Time, the schizophrenic’s temporality corresponds to the primacy of the future in the form of projection and anticipation. Precisely because its experience of time originally temporalizes itself on the basis of the future, Dasein can be defined by Heidegger as “the being for whom, in its very Being, Being is always at issue” and also as “in its Being always already anticipat- ing itself.” But precisely for this reason, Dasein is constitutively schizophrenic; it always risks missing itself and not being present at its own “celebration.
”
”
Giorgio Agamben (The Omnibus Homo Sacer (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics))
“
Hilly Brown was trying to cope with the idea that, for the first time in his life, he had failed at something he really wanted to do. He had been pleased with the applause and congratulations, and he was not so self-deprecating as to mistake honest praise for politeness. But there was a stony part of him—the part which, under other circumstances, might have made him a great artist—which was not satisfied with honest praise. Honest praise, this stony part insisted, was what the bundlers of the world heaped on the heads of the barely competent. In short, honest praise was not enough…
“What do you want, Hilly!?” [his mother] would have cried, throwing up her hands. “Dis-honest praise?” Ev, who saw much, and David, who saw more, could have told her. He wanted to make their eyes get so big they looked like they were going to fall out. He wanted to make the girls scream, and the boys yell...
He would have traded all the honest praise and genuine applause in the world for just one scream, one belly-laugh, one woman fainting dead away like the booklet says they did when Harry Houdini did his famous milk-can escape. Because honest praise means you only got good. When they scream and laugh and faint, that means you got great.
But he suspected—no, he knew—that he was never going to get great, and all the want in the world wasn’t going to change that fact. It was a bitter blow—not the failure itself, so much as the knowing it couldn’t be changed. It was like the end of Santa Clause, in a way.
”
”
Stephen King (The Tommyknockers)
“
The panel delivery truck drew up before the front of the “Amsterdam Apartments” on 126th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenues. Words on its sides, barely discernible in the dim street light, read: LUNATIC LYNDON … I DELIVER AND INSTALL TELEVISION SETS ANY TIME OF DAY OR NIGHT ANY PLACE. Two uniformed delivery men alighted and stood on the sidewalk to examine an address book in the light of a torch. Dark faces were highlighted for a moment like masks on display and went out with the light. They looked up and down the street. No one was in sight. Houses were vague geometrical patterns of black against the lighter blackness of the sky. Crosstown streets were always dark. Above them, in the black squares of windows, crescent-shaped whites of eyes and quarter moons of yellow teeth bloomed like Halloween pumpkins. Suddenly voices bubbled in the night. “Lookin’ for somebody?” The driver looked up. “Amsterdam Apartments.” “These is they.” Without replying, the driver and his helper began unloading a wooden box. Stenciled on its side were the words: Acme Television “Satellite” A.406. “What that number?” someone asked. “Fo-o-six,” Sharp-eyes replied. “I’m gonna play it in the night house if I ain’t too late.” “What ya’ll got there, baby?” “Television set,” the driver replied shortly. “Who dat getting a television this time of night?” The delivery man didn’t reply. A man’s voice ventured, “Maybe it’s that bird liver on the third storey got all them mens.” A woman said scornfully, “Bird liver! If she bird liver I’se fish and eggs and I got a daughter old enough to has mens.” “… or not!” a male voice boomed. “What she got ’ill get television sets when you jealous old hags is fighting over mops and pails.” “Listen to the loverboy! When yo’ love come down last?” “Bet loverboy ain’t got none, bird liver or what.” “Ain’t gonna get none either. She don’t burn no coal.” “Not in dis life, next life maybe.” “You people make me sick,” a woman said from a group on the sidewalk that had just arrived. “We looking for the dead man and you talking ’bout tricks.” The two delivery men were silently struggling with the big television box but the new arrivals got in their way. “Will you ladies kindly move your asses and look for dead men sommers else,” the driver said. His voice sounded mean. “ ’Scuse me,” the lady said. “You ain’t got him, is you?” “Does I look like I’m carrying a dead man ’round in my pocket?” “Dead man! What dead man? What you folks playing?” a man called down interestedly. “Skin?” “Georgia skin? Where?” “Ain’t nobody playing no skin,” the lady said with disgust. “He’s one of us.” “Who?” “The dead man, that’s who.” “One of usses? Where he at?” “Where he at? He dead, that’s where he at.” “Let me get some green down on dead man’s row.” “Ain’t you the mother’s gonna play fo-o-six?” “Thass all you niggers thinks about,” the disgusted lady said. “Womens and hits!” “What else is they?” “Where yo’ pride? The white cops done killed one of usses and thass all you can think about.” “Killed ’im where?” “We don’t know where. Why you think we’s looking?” “You sho’ is a one-tracked woman. I help you look, just don’t call me nigger is all.
”
”
Chester Himes (Blind Man with a Pistol (Harlem Cycle, #8))
“
The fate of the Gospels was decided by death — it hung on the “cross.”... It was only death, that unexpected and shameful death; it was only the cross, which was usually reserved for the canaille only — it was only this appalling paradox which brought the disciples face to face with the real riddle: “Who was it? what was it?”—The feeling of dis may, of profound affront and injury; the suspicion that such a death might involve a refutation of their cause; the terrible question, “Why just in this way?” — this state of mind is only too easy to understand. Here everything must be accounted for as necessary; everything must have a meaning, a reason, the highest sort of reason; the love of a disciple excludes all chance. Only then did the chasm of doubt yawn: “Who put him to death? who was his natural enemy?” — this question flashed like a lightning-stroke. Answer: dominant Judaism, its ruling class.
From that moment, one found one’s self in revolt against the established order, and began to understand Jesus as in revolt against the established order. Until then this militant, this nay-saying, nay-doing element in his character had been lacking; what is more, he had appeared to present its opposite. Obviously, the little community had not understood what was precisely the most important thing of all: the example offered by this way of dying, the freedom from and superiority to every feeling of ressentiment — a plain indication of how little he was understood at all! All that Jesus could hope to accomplish by his death, in itself, was to offer the strongest possible proof, or example, of his teachings in the most public manner ....
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Anti-Christ)
“
The more that injustice, exploitation, inequality, unemployment, poverty, hunger, and misery prevail in human society, the more Che's stature will grow.
The more that the power of imperialism, hegemonism, domination, and interventionism grow, to the detriment of the most sacred rights of the peoples-especially the weak, backward, and poor peoples who for centuries were colonies of the West and sources of slave labor-the more the values Che defended will be upheld.
The more that abuses, selfishness, and alienation exist; the more that Indians, ethnic minorities, women, and immigrants suffer dis crimination; the more that children are bought and sold for sex or forced into the workforce in their hundreds of millions; the more that ignorance, unsanitary conditions, insecurity, and homelessness prevail-the more Che's deeply humanistic message will stand out.
The more that corrupt, demagogic, and hypocritical politicians exist anywhere, the more Che's example of a pure, revolutionary, and consistent human being will come through.
The more cowards, opportunists, and traitors there are on the face of the earth, the more Che's personal courage and revolutionary integrity will be admired.
The more that others lack the ability to fulfill their duty, the more Che's iron willpower will be admired.
The more that some individuals lack the most basic self-respect, the more Che's sense of honor and dignity will be admired.
The more that skeptics abound, the more Che's faith in man will be admired.
The more pessimists there are, the more Che's optimism will be admired.
The more vacillators there are, the more Che's audacity will be admired.
The more that loafers squander the product of the labor of others, the more Che's austerity, his spirit of study and work, will be admired.
”
”
Fidel Castro
“
Medusa is a good example of how Goddess in her dark aspect became demonized in the patriarchal context. Gimbutas points out that the earliest Greek gorgons were not terrifying symbols, but were portrayed with symbols of regeneration – bee wings and snakes as antennae102. Medusa with her serpent hair had been a widely recognized symbol of Divine Female Wisdom – the serpent representing Knowledge of Change, the very essence of Being, never-ending renewal, and thus immortality. Medusa was a face of Ultimate Mystery, of the One – She was “All that has been, that is, and that will be103.” In our cultural mythology Perseus was celebrated as hero for being able to defeat her and cut off her head with its so called deadly gaze. It was said that her gaze was so fearsome it turned mortals to stone. There is no doubt that it is fearsome to look into the eye of the Divine; but patriarchal gods have carried the same characteristic, Yahweh for example, without threat of the same retribution. In the patriarchal context, is it really the gaze of the Female that is deadly? It is women who are the chronically gazed upon, whether as sex object or on a pedestal; perhaps this epitomizes Medusa’s/Goddess’ imprisonment – how She is “kept an eye on”. The beheading of Medusa – one who is icon of Wisdom, may be understood as a story of dis-memberment of the Female Metaphor/Goddess104. The hera’s journey today is to go against the patriarchal injunction and look Medusa straight on, as philosopher Helene Cixous suggests105. She is at first fearsome, but the Dark Goddess’ fierceness nurtures a strength in a woman, gives her back the “steel in her stomach” that she needs to live her life. This Old Wisdom tradition is about recognizing the Power within, and daring to take the journey into that Self-knowledge.
”
”
Glenys Livingstone
“
Beyond Discouragement He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Isaiah 40:29 NKJV We Christians have many reasons to celebrate. God is in His heaven; Christ has risen, and we are the sheep of His flock. Yet sometimes, even the most devout believers may become discouraged. After all, we live in a world where expectations can be high and demands can be even higher. When we fail to meet the expectations of others (or, for that matter, the expectations that we have for ourselves), we may be tempted to abandon hope. But God has other plans. He knows exactly how He intends to use us. Our task is to remain faithful until He does. If you’re a woman who has become discouraged with the direction of your day or your life, turn your thoughts and prayers to God. He is a God of possibility, not negativity. He will help you count your blessings instead of your hardships. And then, with a renewed spirit of optimism and hope, you can properly thank your Father in heaven for His blessings, for His love, and for His Son. Overcoming discouragement is simply a matter of taking away the DIS and adding the EN. Barbara Johnson Just as courage is faith in good, so discouragement is faith in evil, and, while courage opens the door to good, discouragement opens it to evil. Hannah Whitall Smith The strength that we claim from God’s Word does not depend on circumstances. Circumstances will be difficult, but our strength will be sufficient. Corrie ten Boom Would we know the major chords were so sweet if there were no minor key? Mrs. Charles E. Cowman MORE FROM GOD’S WORD But as for you, be strong; don’t be discouraged, for your work has a reward. 2 Chronicles 15:7 HCSB The Lord is the One who will go before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8 HCSB
”
”
Freeman Smith (Fifty Shades of Grace: Devotions Celebrating God's Unlimited Gift)
“
Dear Jon,
A real Dear Jon letter, how perfect is that?! Who knew you’d get dumped twice in the same amount of months. See, I’m one paragraph in and I’ve already fucked this.
I’m writing this because I can’t say any of this to you face-to-face. I’ve spent the last few months questioning a lot of my friendships and wondering what their purpose is, if not to work through big emotional things together. But I now realize: I don’t want that. And I know you’ve all been there for me in other ways. Maybe not in the literal sense, but I know you all would have done anything to fix me other than listening to me talk and allowing me to be sad without solutions. And now I am writing this letter rather than picking up the phone and talking to you because, despite every thing I know, I just don’t want to, and I don’t think you want me to either.
I lost my mind when Jen broke up with me. I’m pretty sure it’s been the subject of a few of your WhatsApp conversations and more power to you, because I would need to vent about me if I’d been friends with me for the last six months. I don’t want it to have been in vain, and I wanted to tell you what I’ve learnt.
If you do a high-fat, high-protein, low-carb diet and join a gym, it will be a good distraction for a while and you will lose fat and gain muscle, but you will run out of steam and eat normally again and put all the weight back on. So maybe don’t bother. Drunkenness is another idea. I was in blackout for most of the first two months and I think that’s fine, it got me through the evenings (and the occasional afternoon). You’ll have to do a lot of it on your own, though, because no one is free to meet up any more. I think that’s fine for a bit. It was for me until someone walked past me drinking from a whisky miniature while I waited for a night bus, put five quid in my hand and told me to keep warm. You’re the only person I’ve ever told this story.
None of your mates will be excited that you’re single again. I’m probably your only single mate and even I’m not that excited. Generally the experience of being single at thirty-five will feel different to any other time you’ve been single and that’s no bad thing.
When your ex moves on, you might become obsessed with the bloke in a way that is almost sexual. Don’t worry, you don’t want to fuck him, even though it will feel a bit like you do sometimes.
If you open up to me or one of the other boys, it will feel good in the moment and then you’ll get an emotional hangover the next day. You’ll wish you could take it all back. You may even feel like we’ve enjoyed seeing you so low. Or that we feel smug because we’re winning at something and you’re losing. Remember that none of us feel that.
You may become obsessed with working out why exactly she broke up with you and you are likely to go fully, fully nuts in your bid to find a satisfying answer. I can save you a lot of time by letting you know that you may well never work it out. And even if you did work it out, what’s the purpose of it? Soon enough, some girl is going to be crazy about you for some undefinable reason and you’re not going to be interested in her for some undefinable reason. It’s all so random and unfair – the people we want to be with don’t want to be with us and the people who want to be with us are not the people we want to be with.
Really, the thing that’s going to hurt a lot is the fact that someone doesn’t want to be with you any more. Feeling the absence of someone’s company and the absence of their love are two different things. I wish I’d known that earlier. I wish I’d known that it isn’t anybody’s job to stay in a relationship they don’t want to be in just so someone else doesn’t feel bad about themselves.
Anyway. That’s all. You’re going to be okay, mate.
Andy
”
”
Dolly Alderton (Good Material)
“
See how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and distorted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad."
I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. "They say that they think with their heads," he replied. "Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise. "We think here," he said, indicating his heart.
I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augustine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced conversions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hollowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then followed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them.
It was enough. What we from our point of view call colonization, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face - the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel intentness for distant quarry - a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.
”
”
C.G. Jung
“
I also kept wondering, throughout that week in the summer of 2016, what if all I wanted to do was bang Nick Jonas (a question still) and maybe wrote a fifteen-hundred-word ode, talking about his chest and his ass and his dumb-sexy face and the fact I didn’t really like his music—would that have been a dis on Nick? Or what if a woman wanted to write about how she really hated Drake’s music but found him so physically hot and desirable that she was lusting for him anyway? Where would that put her? Where would that put me? Would either of these pieces raise any eyebrows? Were we then equal? No, not even close, because in our culture social-justice warriors always prefer women to be victims. The responses from Jezebel and Flavorwire and Teen Vogue all recast Ferreira as a victim, reinforcing her (supposed) violation at the hands of a male writer—the usual hall-of-mirrors loop people find themselves in when looking for something, anything, to get angry about, and one where they can occasionally, eventually, get tripped up. The reality is that men look at women, and men look at other men, and women look at men, and women especially size up other women and objectify them. Has anybody who’s ever been on a dating app recently not seen how our Darwinian impulses are gratified by a swipe or two?
”
”
Bret Easton Ellis (White)
“
Our 182-passenger Boeing Classic this morning is under the able command of Captain Hiram Slatt, discharged from service in the United States Air Force mission in Afghanistan after six heroic deployments and now returned, following a restorative sabbatical at the VA Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Wheeling, West Virginia, to his “first love”—civilian piloting for North American Airways. Captain Slatt has informed us that, once we are cleared for takeoff, our flying time will be between approximately seventeen and twenty-two hours depending upon ever-shifting Pacific Ocean air currents and the ability of our seasoned Classic 878 to withstand gale-force winds of 90 knots roaring “like a vast army of demons” (in Captain Slatt’s colorful terminology) over the Arctic Circle. As you have perhaps noticed Flight 443 is a full—i.e., “overbooked”—flight. Actually most North American Airways flights are overbooked—it is Airways protocol to persist in assuming that a certain percentage of passengers will simply fail to show up at the gate having somehow expired, or disappeared, en route. For those of you who boarded with tickets for seats already taken—North American Airways apologizes for this unforeseeable development. We have dealt with the emergency situation by assigning seats in four lavatories as well as in the hold and in designated areas of the overhead bin. Therefore our request to passengers in Economy Plus, Economy, and Economy Minus is that you force your carry-ons beneath the seat in front of you; and what cannot be crammed into that space, or in the overhead bin, if no one is occupying the overhead bin, you must grip securely on your lap for the duration of the flight. Passengers in First Class may give their drink orders now. SECURITY:
”
”
Joyce Carol Oates (Dis Mem Ber: And Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense)
“
How does she do that?” Bird asked.
I didn’t have to ask who the she was. I knew it was Tiffany. Nor did I have to ask what Bird was referring to. Jason and Mac were leaning toward Tiffany, listening to whatever it was she was saying, like it was the most interesting thing in the world.
“Does she wear, like, turn-’em-stupid perfume or something?” Bird asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe guys like thinking they’re way smarter than girls.”
“It’s gotta be an act. No one is that brainless.” She grimaced. “I don’t mean to dis your sister, but really, does anyone think the moon actually turns blue?”
Yeah, Tiffany had asked, “So when does the moon turn blue?”
Mac had laughed and explained that a blue moon was the second full moon in a month, that a full moon appeared every twenty-nine nights, and so it was truly rare to have two full moons in any given month. He’d said he’d taken a class in astronomy.
“Oh, I love astronomy. I’m a Pisces. What sign are you?”
Which had made Mac laugh again, and he started to explain the difference between astronomy and astrology. Tiffany was apparently absolutely fascinated…and fascinating. His gaze--and Jason’s--was riveted on her.
I gave another little shrug, feeling a need to defend my sister, who might be in need of a trip down the yellow brick road to ask the wizard for some brains. “I wasn’t exactly sure what a blue moon was, either.”
“But you know the difference between astronomy and astrology.
”
”
Rachel Hawthorne (The Boyfriend League)
“
13. “Knowledge stands for the arrival (husûl ) in the soul of some
concept (ma-
na) in a way that does not leave open the possibility that it
could be different from the manner in which it has arrived.”86 Cf. above,
D-5 and D-9.
14. “Knowledge is the perception (tasawwur) of a thing according
to its realities.”87 Almost identical formulations are: “The knower . . . is
he who perceives (mutasawwir) a thing according to its reality,”88 and,
“Knowledge is perception (tasawwur) on our part of a thing according
to its reality,” or, “perception of a thing as it is.”89
15. “Knowledge is the perception (tasawwur) by the soul of the dis-
tinctive characteristics (rusûm) of the objects known in its essence.”90
The pronoun “its” refers to “soul.” Grammatically it could also refer
to “distinctive characteristics” or “objects known,” but then, the plural
“essences” would be expected.
16. “Absolute knowledge is the soul’s perception of the truths of
things which are the objects of knowledge.”91
17. “Knowledge is the perception (tasawwur) of things through thor-
ough understanding (tahaqquq) of quiddity and definition and apperception (tasdîq) with regard to them through pure, veri-
ed (muhaqqaq)
certainty.”92
18. “Knowledge is that which perception (tasawwur) and appercep-
tion (tasdîq) teach (afâda).”93
19. “The intellect is the perceptions and apperceptions that arrive at
the soul (or, “are attained by the soul”) by natural endowment (bi-l--fitrah),
whereas knowledge is that which arrives by acquisition (iktisâb).
”
”
Franz Rosenthal (Knowledge Triumphant: The Concept of Knowledge in Medieval Islam (Brill Classics in Islam))
“
Ava: Good morning, boyfriend. My alarm went off at 4:30 and I had to get home. I didn’t want to. I could’ve stayed in your arms forever. Connor: New phone. Who dis? Ava: Sorry. Wrong number. I meant to send that to my other boyfriend. Connor: I’ll beat his ass. Ava: Before or after you get done sucking your thumb, you giant baby. Connor: Listen here, you little shit. Ava: I miss you. Connor: Me too. I’ll be around earlier to take you to school. I have a lot of apologizing to do today, remember? Ava: Oh yeah. Sucks to be you. Connor: Not really. Last night I had a girl sleep in my bed for the first time ever, so that was kind of cool. Ava: Yeah? Was she hot? Connor: Eh. Ava: Listen here, you little shit. Connor: I can’t wait, Ava. Ava: For what? Connor: Everything.
”
”
Jay McLean (Heartache and Hope (Heartache Duet, #1))
“
Who says I’se free? I warn’t neber no slabe. I libed wid qual’ty an’ was one ob de fambly. Take dis bandanna off? No, ‘deedy! dats the las’ semblance I’se got ob de good ole times. S’pose I is brack, I cyan’t he’p it. If mah mammy and pappy chose for me ter be brack, I ain’t gwine ter be lak some white folks I knows an’ blame de Lord for all de ’flictions dat comes ’pon ’em. I’se put up wid dis brackness now, ’cordin’ to ol’ Mis’s Bible, for nigh on ter ninety years, an’ t’ank de good Lord, dat eberlastin’ day is mos’ come when I’ll be white as Mis’ Chloe for eber mo’! [Her mistress had died some years before.] What’s dat, honey? How I knows I’se gwine ter be white? Why, honey, I’se s’prised! Do you s’pose ’cause Mammy’s face is brack, her soul is brack too? Whar’s yo’ larnin’ gone to?
”
”
Leon F. Litwack (Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery)
“
rejection-sensitive dysphoria,” or RSD, which describes a tendency on the part of people who have ADHD to overreact precipitously and disastrously to even the slightest perceived put-down, dis, or vaguely negative remark. They can spiral down to the depths in the blink of an eye and become inconsolable.
”
”
Edward M. Hallowell (ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood)
“
Grey: I need you to pick up my new suit from Brooks Brothers on 6th. Jenny had something come up.
Me: New phone, who dis?
Grey: Do you get beat up a lot?
”
”
Lucy Lennox (Hostile Takeover (Hostile Takeover #1))
“
A word of warning for those who are DIs (Dominance and Influential). Yes, you may be able to win the deals, but you need to recognize your weaknesses and then hire those out. DIs have a particularly difficult time with scaling their companies due to the fact that they often become the bottleneck, as sales continue to rely purely on the force of their personality.
”
”
Colin C. Campbell (Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.: Serial Entrepreneurs' Secrets Revealed!)
“
If'n I took a mule from the side of the road and I knowed who it belonged to, wouldn't that be stealin'?"
"I ain't a mule, Huck."
"Ain't I doin' wrong, though?" Huck said. He was troubled.
"How am I s'posed to know what good is?"
"Way I sees it is dis. If'n ya gots to hab a rule to tells ya wha's good, if'n ya need sum kinda God to tells ya right from wrong, den you won't never know."
"But the law says..."
"Good ain't got nuttin' to do wif da law. Law says I'm a slave.
”
”
Percival Everett (James)
“
Dis-moi contre qui me battre, et je me battrai jusqu’à ce qu’ils disparaissent.” Tell me who to fight. I will fight until they all go away. It’s when tears start to coat her cheeks that I gently lift her to my chest, her arms limp at her sides. “Dis-moi comment réparer cela. Dis-moi, mon amour. Je ferai n’importe quoi.” Tell me how to fix this. Tell me, my love. I’ll do anything.
”
”
Kate Stewart (The Finish Line (The Ravenhood #3))
“
Dis-moi contre qui me battre, et je me battrai jusqu’à ce qu’ils disparaissent.” Tell me who to fight. I will fight until they all go away. It’s when tears start to coat her cheeks that I gently lift her to my chest, her arms limp at her sides. “Dis-moi comment réparer cela. Dis-moi, mon amour. Je ferai n’importe quoi.” Tell me how to fix this. Tell me, my love. I’ll do anything. Another sob escapes her as she comes to, and I hold her tightly to me to try and keep her grounded. “Ce n’est qu’un rêve, Trésor. Je suis là. Je suis là.” Just a dream, treasure. I’m here. I’m here.
”
”
Kate Stewart (The Finish Line (The Ravenhood #3))
“
Take us to the guildhouse of Pasha Pook,” Drizzt said, getting to the point, wanting to be done with his business and out of Calimport, “then you are dismissed.” Sali Dalib paled at the request. “Pasha Poop?” he stammered. “Who is dis?
”
”
R.A. Salvatore (The Halfling's Gem (The Icewind Dale, #3; The Legend of Drizzt, #6))
“
we find people who are dependent on something outside of themselves in order to have an identity. These are examples of the dis-ease of co-dependence.
”
”
John Bradshaw (Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child)
“
provoke a challenge from Clovis, the Prince of Blinsk, who was widely known as a master swordsman. And of course, anyone familiar with the history of Dis will know that she got her wish.[5] Why would Shelly deliberately provoke the encounter that was result in her own doom? Perhaps she feared that in her old age, her natural tendencies would overcome her training, or perhaps she had simply decided that she had lived long enough. Either way, far from being proof of Tobalt’s failure, Shelly’s
”
”
Robert Kroese (Distopia (Land of Dis, #2))
“
[Beings with such realization] do not behold sentient beings, but great compassion still flowers in them. They do not behold themselves either, but they still lend their support to all sentient beings. They do not behold anything to be attained whatsoever, but they still establish beings in great enlightenment. Just as there is no place whatsoever to go to beyond space, they do not behold anybody who would go somewhere beyond, but they still dis-I tv [the activity of] liberating sentient beings from cyclic existence.''' P~,
”
”
Karl Brunnhölzl (The Center of the Sunlit Sky: Madhyamaka in the Kagyu Tradition (Nitartha Institute Series))
“
CRISIS IN LOVE
crisis in love , is what makes love no longer love but haterd , it also distroy friendship , ,, . We have two major crisi s in love , .MONEY & SEX....
Most of our gals nowadays no longer interested in true love , but un does who send money un dem, many has gone because of it , dat is why men nowadays are using dem for rituals ,, , while some are having problem in their marriage because of it, this is also break the marriage when the möney is gone, , True love is like a seed , if u water it , it wil grow , if not it wil die . What shall do to prevent dis , for gals dont love a gal because of his money , bt love him because of his future ,.SEX. What shall it profit a man to gain the pride ,of a woman and loses it his bright future, , Some of our gals are decive by the word "I LOVE U,," that makes some mothers in this dear youth stages, Some are also distorying dear womb , in the name of abortion , and also some family are childless because of this ,.., and so sin before God and man. Shine ur eyes gals, many has gone, before u openup for a guy makes sure he has paide ur bride price, .. LET u understand the sex , is devine gift from God to promote marriage life......NB Love is devine by one word sacrifice, ..that is why God sent his son to die for us. JESUS is pure example of love. Thanks . I LOVE u all ,but God
LOVE most.
”
”
BUKASON
“
This particular ogre, who went by the name Skoorn, was (by ogreish standards) exceedingly clever, and he had developed a taste for what ogres call “screech melons.
”
”
Robert Kroese (Disenchanted (Land of Dis, #1))
“
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. ~ Isaiah 53:2-3 Isaiah’s the Suffering Servant songs paint a picture of someone who has experienced rejection, dis-appointment, and even abuse. Jesus’ suffering on the cross is well known, but Isaiah also points to the anguish of heart: the feelings our Lord experienced among his own people. In the opening of his
”
”
Ray Hollenbach (A Month of Thanksgiving)
“
It was a perfectly good word – until Eliot got hold of it. It’s spoiled for me now. Eliot did to the word love what the Russians did to the word democracy. If Eliot is going to love everybody, no matter what they are, no matter what they do, then those of us who love particular people for particular reasons had better find ourselves a new word.’ He looked up at an oil painting of his deceased wife. ‘For instance – I loved her more than I loved our garbage collector, which makes me guilty of the most unspeakable of modern crimes: Dis-crimi-nay-tion.
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (God Bless You, Mr Rosewater)
“
[Beings with such realization] do not behold sentient beings, but great compassion still flowers in them. They do not behold themselves either, but they still lend their support to all sentient beings. They do not behold anything to be attained whatsoever, but they still establish beings in great enlightenment. Just as there is no place whatsoever to go to beyond space, they do not behold anybody who would go somewhere beyond, but they still dis-I tv [the activity of] liberating sentient beings from cyclic existence.
”
”
Karl Brunnhölzl (The Center of the Sunlit Sky: Madhyamaka in the Kagyu Tradition (Nitartha Institute Series))
“
St. Polycarp (+about 155), who was a personal dis ciple of St. John the Evangelist, admonishes priests to be merciful to sinners. " The presbyters," he says, " should be compassionate, merciful to all, bringing back those that have gone astray, . . . refraining from unjust judgment, . . . knowing that we all owe the debt of sin. If then we pray the Lord to forgive us, we also ought to forgive, for we stand before the eyes of the Lord and of God, and we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, and each must give an account of himself." 41
”
”
Joseph Pohle (The sacraments: A Dogmatic Treatise, Vol. 3)
“
Hadassah Hospital. She worked on Herschlag in his bed, a towel around his neck, while Nomi held a mirror, a tiny compact, for him to see, according to his wishes. “I can’t stand the prickly little hairs,” Elias said. “I need to take a shower.” The Songstress of Abu Dis, who had not hurried back to the nurse’s station, offered to accompany Elias to the shower. But he refused, and Nomi noticed the resentment in his eyes. “That’s his pride,” the nurse explained to Nomi while Elias showered. “He won’t let anyone bathe him. Doesn’t matter if it takes him an hour, he’ll do it himself. Don’t lock the door!” she shouted amicably. They heard the click of the lock, and Nomi smiled at her. The nurse returned a knowing smile. “He’s a prince,” she said before she went back to her work. “Not bad for a last haircut,” Elias said as he emerged from the shower. Herschlag smiled at the two women in the room. “Ne’iman,” Nomi said, using the Arabic blessing for someone who has bathed. His eyes filled with softness and warmth. Katy returned from the canteen and snuck four bottles of beer into the room, a look of mischief on her face. Elias and Herschlag
”
”
Anat Talshir (About the Night)
“
Hulking piece of rust,” she grumbled, then gave it a little pat on the wheel well as she scooted out between her truck and Hannah’s car. “Can’t let the car gods hear you dis their minions,” she said when she caught Cooper’s amused look. “They’ll strand you in the desert as sure as look at you. Besides, she might be a hulking piece of rusted metal but she’s my hulking piece.” She stopped when she reached her sister and gave her a one-armed hug. “And to what do I owe this pleasure? Cross-examining my afternoon date, are we?”
“Maybe,” Hannah said, hugging her back.
“Oh, good.” Kerry grinned, rubbing her hands together. “What did you learn?”
“Hey, now,” Cooper said, chuckling. “What makes you think I’d give anything up?”
“Oh, she’s good,” Kerry told him. “She once talked a tribal chief in Papua New Guinea, out of marrying me to his youngest son.”
Cooper looked at Hannah, who just raised an arched brow but didn’t refute the statement.
“Well, then, I suppose I’m even more in your debt,” he told Kerry’s oldest sister. “Unless of course the tribe believes in polygamy.”
Kerry looked affronted. “You’d share me? Well, well, good to know.” She folded her arms. “So glad we’re having this little chat.”
“Oh, no, Starfish, no such luck. You’d be stuck making do with only me. You see, I know a guy who could fly us out of there on his helicopter, and I’m guessing your erstwhile tribal spouse wouldn’t go anywhere near one of those flying birds. I’d spirit you off and--”
“And leave my poor first husband brokenhearted and alone? Do I get a say in this?” She looked to her sister. “You’re drawing up my pre-nup, right?”
Cooper brightened and clapped his hands together, which earned him an arched brow from Kerry. “Well, while I’m not too thrilled about your attachment to Number One, speaking as Number Two, I will say I’m happy to hear we’re in the negotiation phase.”
“Husband Number One is a lot younger,” she said consideringly. “And while he doesn’t have as many head of cattle as you do, he does come with an entire village, and if something happens to his other six brothers, he’ll be chief one day.” She smiled sweetly. “Just saying.”
Cooper flashed her a smile that might have been a little too private with her sister standing right there, but what the hell. “Keep in mind, Number Twos traditionally try harder. So I have that going for me.”
Hannah looked from Cooper to Kerry, then at both of them, before finally looking at Kerry. “Seriously, marry him before he wises up.”
“Hey,” Kerry replied, mock wounded. “And why do you say that?”
“You speak the same language.”
“Says the woman who communicates with her husband using old movie quotes that nobody gets but the two of you.”
Hannah smiled, really smiled, and it transformed her often more serious expression into something truly radiant. “Yes, that’s exactly who’s saying that.” She looked at Cooper. “I have a feeling you and Calder will become fast friends.”
“Thank you,” Cooper said, “for both sentiments.
”
”
Donna Kauffman (Starfish Moon (Brides of Blueberry Cove, #3))
“
Jimmy stated that as a youth he was a triple threat. He couldn’t hit, run fast or field a grounder. I am beginning to like Jimmy even more than the day I met him. This is a far cry from Lewis’s youthful self-aggrandizement. Yet I like Lewis for his youthful self-aggrandizement. Writing is kinda funny that way. Candidly, I like Jimmy’s and Lewis’s stuff better than Erskine Caldwell’s depressing stuff, but I digress. Plus, it is shabby form to dis a writer who is no longer around to defend himself. But if Erskine was around, my guess is his self defense would be depressing.
”
”
Peter Stoddard (Lewis Grizzard: The Dawg That Did Not Hunt)
“
Mieux vaut être seul que mal accompagné [Best to be alone than poorly accompanied]; and 2) Dis-moi qui sont tes amis et je te dirai qui tu es [Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are].
”
”
Gad Saad (The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense)
“
The biography of John Wesley is surely unique. Here is a man born in the first decade of his century, who sees it through into the last; a man so far in reaction from the tendencies of his age that he seems a living commentary on them, yet so much the child of his age that you cannot think of him as fitting in with any other. A High Churchman in his youth, he makes for himself in the unsympathetic surroundings of Oxford an enclave of primitive observance and of ascetic living; such is his personal influence that he seems destined, if that were possible, to shake Oxford out of its long dream. Dis aliter visum; he undergoes an experience of conversion before his lifetime has reached its mid-point. A sensational conversion; the finished product of the schools becomes the disciple of a foreign visitor to our shores, by no means his match in intellect. Thenceforward, he must fight by other methods, and for the most part with other companions, that battle against irreligion to which he has dedicated his youth. He has made his own soul, but the battle is not yet over; he finds himself in conflict with the men who had been his closest comrades in arms, and who still share his own beliefs but exaggerate their emphasis in a degree which he thinks dangerous. A man who once seemed likely to do great things for the Church of England, yet whose influence, on the whole, was to damage her position in the eyes of his contemporaries; a man, nevertheless, who lived to see something of the old bitterness against him die down, whose age was cheered by public recognition at once welcome, unsought, and unexpected.
So far, however, there is nothing unique about John Wesley. A careful reperusal of the foregoing paragraph will show that it all applies equally to the career of Cardinal Newman.
Wesley and Newman-you might think that some elfin fate had arranged this odd consent between the stars of the two men, just so as to throw into relief the vast difference there was between them. Newman, so sensitive, so warm in his attachments, so revealing in This content downloaded from his literary confidences, Wesley, so unruffled by opposition, so half-hearted in his familiarities, so circumspect in his admissions; Newman, the recluse, Wesley, a lifelong vagabond in the service of his gospel; Newman, painstaking in his judgements, fastidious in his style, Wesley, leaping to infallible conclusions and throwing them at you with the first words that came to hand; Newman, such a child of the Renaissance, Wesley, so fundamentally a Puritan. And, deeper down, Newman the apostle of religious authority, Wesley, a cheerful experimentalist who in all the hesitations of a lifetime never asked himself by what right he ruled, or on what basis of intellectual certainty he believed.
”
”
Ronald Knox (Enthusiasm: A Chapter in the History of Religion)
“
The only thing Dis had in common with the Jedi was his connection to the Force. Many Talortai were sensitive to the energy field that bound the universe together, but few of his species ever made use of it, the cowards. They said it wasn’t their right, that to do so was somehow immoral. Dis had never understood why. If you were lucky enough to have abilities, shouldn’t you use them, hone them to gain an advantage over those who didn’t?
”
”
Cavan Scott (Star Wars: The Rising Storm (Star Wars: The High Republic Book 2))
“
The advent of the Apple Macintosh in 1985 made a tremendous improvement in publishing the Fearless Flyer. Using a piece of software called Adobe® PageMaker, we were able to dis-intermediate most of the printer’s function and produce camera-ready copy entirely in our office. Pat St. John, whom Alice recruited for us in 1986 as head of advertising, made a great contribution here, cutting lead time by almost a week. Anyone who has been in advertising can appreciate the nerve-racking problems of products that are advertised but didn’t arrive in time to cover the advertising. I would have had a coronary without the Macintosh, which had made it possible to expand the Fearless Flyer from twelve pages to twenty. This created all the more space to advertise products, but it also potentiated the coronary potential, and the almost-as-bad requirement for still more cartoons! Please remember: Trader Joe’s was a low-overhead operation with all of us wearing several hats. Sure, some of the above could have been done pre-Macintosh, but at vastly greater expense.
”
”
Joe Coulombe (Becoming Trader Joe: How I Did Business My Way and Still Beat the Big Guys)
“
I release the shame, guilt, embarrassment and taboo or stigma that is attached to suffering from post-natal depression. I wear my war wounds proudly in hope that I can shine the light for those women and families who see no way out of the trenches. I speak out in hope of creating change in a condition that is widely misunderstood, to create opportunities for healing holistically and change the current model where women can get lost in the system, and can lose their lives battling this silent and very isolating dis-ease.
”
”
Namita Mahanama
“
A much-loved and longtime worker, Lacey, dispensed gentle Christian advice to the young women around her, who were often troubled or tired. I still have an image of Lacey sitting quietly among the bustle of the dressing room and presenting such a beautiful picture; she was so serene, so accepting, and right with Christ, whom she loved more than her own breathing. She had been raised within the paradoxically freeing confines of strict morality in a black Baptist church. One may wonder how such a religious woman had come to lead a life as a career dancer. Lacey was blessed—for so she considered it—with the most enormous breasts I had ever seen. They actually prevented her from leading a normal existence. I asked her once if she felt angry that through no fault of her own she was forced to lead what many might consider an immoral life. She seemed genuinely surprised. “The Lord give me dese,” she said, as she pushed her small hands under the mountains of flesh that gave her headaches, backaches, and rashes. Lifting them up to heaven as a testament to her belief in their divine origins, she continued, “He give me dese so I could spread love. Den He give me dis job so I could get along in life.
”
”
Dawn Prince-Hughes (Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism)
“
Should I also be glad of our unwanted guest?"
"Unwanted?" Her eyes widened as her voice rose. "She's the goddess of love, fertility, beauty, and desire. Who could be more perfect for a wedding? Although..." She tapped her lush lips, considering. "She does have a bad side, but you can't blame her. Who wouldn't have issues if you'd been born from the sea foam created from Uranus's blood after his youngest son, Cronus, castrated him and threw his genitals into the sea?"
The woman in pink choked on her food. The man with the goatee barked a laugh. Jay crossed his legs, although his family jewels weren't under threat.
"She also had many adulterous affairs," Zara continued to her now rapt audience of singles. "Most notable with Ares. So maybe cutting off her head is a good thing." She lifted a forkful of biryani. "Did you know her name gave us the word aphrodisiac? Or that her Latin name, Venus, gave us the word venereal for venereal dis----"
Jay cut her off with a raised hand. "Not something I really wanted to think about over a meal.
”
”
Sara Desai (The Singles Table (Marriage Game, #3))
“
When an individual is in pain, the orders are bed rest and/or surgery and/or stabilization of the area through bracing and/or fusion and/or muscle strengthening. These are the very opposite approaches to take regarding healing. The appropriate therapy is to defeat fear and to become happier, more involved, and more productive. This isn’t easy—but
it’s well worth the effort.
The truth be told, people feel sorry for themselves, and so they often unknowingly place themselves in pain and dis-ease for attention or self-pity. Their anger then seeks out any previously abused area of the body or any newly recommended center of focus and attention as new modern
diseases multiply as needed. People who are aware and fearing of their aging, naturally begin to feel sorrier for themselves. People losing their looks or status (retirement) are depressed—greatly enraged by the anticipation of their own fate (aging, death); through self-sorrow, self-pity, and anger, they take their fear and frustration out on their own bodies. We live as our very will directs us.
”
”
Steven Ray Ozanich (The Great Pain Deception: Faulty Medical Advice Is Making Us Worse)
“
Dr. Frode Stenseng, who has studied both the benefits and potential harms of escapism, would describe as self-expansion, the "good" kind of escapism.
When you're in an escapist state, as described by Stenseng, you (1) become completely absorbed in whatever it is you're doing, aka nowness.
You (2) might temporarily dis-sociate, which, experienced positively, can feel like being liberated from your identity, reaching what you might call oneness.
And finally, for a few beautiful moments of time, you (3) stop judging yourself-in Hadfield's description supplanted by a reverence for "something so much bigger than you." For anyone whose mind is frequently engaged in a litany of self-critique, you know the sweet relief of such an experience. Curiosity is a form of self-expansion, also.
”
”
Mike Rucker (The Fun Habit)
“
Con-Text is the centuries-old city of Islam, a great and sprawling city consisting of various edifices erected for the various purposes of living by Muslims of bygone and present times, made in different forms and out of different materials, in various states of preservation, renovation and disrepair, of wide-ranging functions with different degrees of use and dis-use, with quarters and neighbourhoods inhabited by diverse peoples doing different things—all of which are nonetheless component elements in a part of what is ultimately, for all its citizens, the same shared environment and ecosystem of living and identification. The citizen is the one who lives in a city with which he identifies and affiliates himself—even if the specific constitution of his particular identification with the city may differ from that of another fellow-citizen, and even as what he thinks is good or bad about the city (what he thinks should be knocked down or restored, what should serve as a model for further construction, and what he thinks should be abandoned) might differ from that of a fellow-citizen. As the citizen moves about the city, its diverse component elements invoke and provoke in him different responses of orientation, narration and attachment; yet, he recognizes these edifices—even the ones he does not like—as edifices of this city. And even if some edifices are at some point destroyed, they remain in the memory (until such time as they are forgotten) as edifices of this city, as a part and parcel of its history and of the meanings that its name evokes.
”
”
Shahab Ahmed (What Is Islam?: The Importance of Being Islamic)
“
Where is the counterpart to this closed system of will, goal and interpretation? Why is the counterpart lacking? . . . Where is the other ‘one goal’? . . . But I am told it is not lacking, not only has it fought a long, successful fight with that ideal, but it has already mastered that ideal in all essentials: all our modern science is witness to that, – modern science which, as a genuine philosophy of reality, obvi- ously believes only in itself, obviously possesses the courage to be itself, the will to be itself, and has hitherto got by well enough without God, the beyond and the virtues of denial. However, I am not impressed by such noise and rabble-rousers’ claptrap: these people who trumpet reality are bad musicians, it is easy enough to hear that their voices do not come from the depths, the abyss of scientific conscience does not speak from them – for the scientific conscience today is an abyss –, the word ‘science’ is quite simply an obscenity in the traps of such trumpeters, an abuse, an indecency.
109
On the Genealogy of Morality
Precisely the opposite of what they are declaring here is the truth: science today has absolutely no faith in itself, let alone in an ideal above it, – and where it is still passion, love, fire, suffering, it is not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the latter’s own most recent and noble manifestation. Does that sound strange to you? . . . There are enough worthy and modest workers even amongst the scholars of today, who like their little corner and therefore, because they like being there, are occasionally somewhat pre- sumptuous in making their demand heard that people today ought to be content in general, especially with science – there being so much useful work to be done. I do not deny it: I am the last to want to spoil the pleasure of these honest workers in their craft: for I delight in their work. But the fact that nowadays people are working hard in science, and that they are contented workmen, does not at all prove that today, science as a whole has a goal, a will, an ideal, a passion of great faith. The opposite, as I said, is the case: where it is not the most recent manifestation of the ascetic ideal – there are too few noble, exceptional cases for the general judgment to be deflected – then science today is a hiding place for all kinds of ill-humour, unbelief, gnawing worms, despectio sui,113 bad conscience – it is the disquiet of the lack of ideals itself, the suffering from a lack of great love, the dis- content over enforced contentedness. Oh, what does science not conceal today! how much it is supposed to conceal, at any rate! The industry of our best scholars, their unreflective diligence, heads smoking night and day, their very mastery of their craft – how often does all that mean trying to conceal something from themselves? Science as a means of self-anaesthetic: do you know that? . . . Everyone in contact with scholars has the experience that they are sometimes wounded to the marrow by a harmless word, we anger our scholarly friends at the very moment when we want to honour them, we make them lose their temper and control simply because we were too coarse to guess who we were actually dealing with, with sufferers who do not want to admit what they are to themselves, with people drugged and dazed who fear only one thing: coming to consciousness . . .
”
”
Nietszche
“
Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters
1
To breed an animal with the prerogative to promise – is that not pre- cisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind? is it not the real problem of humankind? . . . The fact that this problem has been solved to a large degree must seem all the more sur- prising to the person who can fully appreciate the opposing force, forget- fulness. Forgetfulness is not just a vis inertiae, as superficial people believe, but is rather an active ability to suppress, positive in the strongest sense of the word, to which we owe the fact that what we simply live through, experience, take in, no more enters our consciousness during digestion (one could call it spiritual ingestion) than does the thousand-fold process which takes place with our physical consumption of food, our so-called ingestion. To shut the doors and windows of consciousness for a while; not to be bothered by the noise and battle with which our underworld of serviceable organs work with and against each other; a little peace, a little tabula rasa of consciousness to make room for something new, above all for the nobler functions and functionaries, for ruling, predicting, pre- determining (our organism runs along oligarchic lines, you see) – that, as I said, is the benefit of active forgetfulness, like a doorkeeper or guardian of mental order, rest and etiquette: from which we can immediately see how there could be no happiness, cheerfulness, hope, pride, immediacy, without forgetfulness. The person in whom this apparatus of suppression is damaged, so that it stops working, can be compared (and not just com- pared –) to a dyspeptic; he cannot ‘cope’ with anything . . . And precisely
35
On the Genealogy of Morality
this necessarily forgetful animal, in whom forgetting is a strength, repre- senting a form of robust health, has bred for himself a counter-device, memory, with the help of which forgetfulness can be suspended in certain cases, – namely in those cases where a promise is to be made: conse- quently, it is by no means merely a passive inability to be rid of an impres- sion once it has made its impact, nor is it just indigestion caused by giving your word on some occasion and finding you cannot cope, instead it is an active desire not to let go, a desire to keep on desiring what has been, on some occasion, desired, really it is the will’s memory: so that a world of strange new things, circumstances and even acts of will may be placed quite safely in between the original ‘I will’, ‘I shall do’ and the actual dis- charge of the will, its act, without breaking this long chain of the will. But what a lot of preconditions there are for this! In order to have that degree of control over the future, man must first have learnt to distinguish between what happens by accident and what by design, to think causally, to view the future as the present and anticipate it, to grasp with certainty what is end and what is means, in all, to be able to calculate, compute – and before he can do this, man himself will really have to become reliable, regular, necessary, even in his own self-image, so that he, as someone making a promise is, is answerable for his own future!
”
”
Nietszche
“
Trick #1 for Farming Humans is the ability to invisibly commit crime. Chapter 1, Page 9, Ring of Gyges Trick #2 for Farming Humans is to allow professionals to create rigged systems or self serving social constructs. Chapter 4, page 28 (Lawyers who serve corporate interests are often incentivized to assist in harming the society to increase their own security. SEC, Bernie Madoff, Corporations as invisible friends, Money laundering assistance) Trick #3 in Farming Humans is making it legal for insider manipulation of public markets for private gain. (Boeing CEO) page 32 Trick #4 for Farming Humans is Justice prefers to look only down…rarely up towards power. Chapter 5, page 33. Trick #5 for Farming Humans is “let us create the nation’s money”. What could go wrong? Found in Chapter 7 on page 38. Trick # 6 in the game of Farming Humans, to create something which gives a few men an elevated status above the rest. Southern Pacific Railroad taxes, to Pacific Gas and Electric deadly California fires, to Boeing aircraft casualties. Paper “persons” cannot be arrested or jailed. Trick #7 for Farming Humans is a private game of money creation which secretly “borrowed” on the credit backing of the public. Chapter 9, page 51. Federal Reserve. Trick #8 for Farming Humans is seen in the removal of the gold backing of US dollars for global trading partners, a second default of the promises behind the dollar. (1971) Chapter 15, page 81 Trick #9 for Farming Humans is being able to sell out the public trust, over and over again. Supreme Court rules that money equals speech. Chapter 16, page 91. Trick #10 for Farming Humans is Clinton repeals Glass Steagall, letting banks gamble America into yet another financial collapse. Chapter 17, page 93. Trick #11 for Farming Humans is when money is allowed to buy politics. Citizens United, super PAC’s can spend unlimited money during campaigns. Chapter 18, page 97. Trick #12 for Farming Humans is the Derivative Revolution. Making it up with lawyers and papers in a continual game of “lets pretend”. Chapter 19, page 105. Trick #13 for Farming Humans is allowing dis-information to infect society. Chapter 20, page 109. Trick #14 for Farming Humans is substitution of an “advisor”, for what investors think is an “adviser”. Confused yet? The clever “vowel movement” adds billions in profits, while farming investors. Trick #15 for Farming Humans is when privately-hired rental-cops are allowed to lawfully regulate an industry, the public gets abused. Investments, SEC, FDA, FAA etc. Chapter 15, page 122 Trick #16 for Farming Humans is the layer of industry “self regulators”, your second army of people paid to “gaslight” the public into thinking they are protected.
”
”
Larry Elford (Farming Humans: Easy Money (Non Fiction Financial Murder Book 1))
“
This isn’t a game,” Erica warned all of us. “Our lives are at stake here. And maybe a lot of other people’s as well.” She slipped back into her fake persona just as Jessica came within earshot, acting like she was in the middle of the story. “. . . and then Maya laughed so hard, the soda came right out of her nose. It was dis-gust-ing!” Everyone made an appropriate “ewwwww” in response. Except Jessica, who looked around at all of us, seeming upset she’d missed something good. “What are you guys talking about?” “Sasha’s trying to make us all lose our lunch,” Zoe said. “Yuck,” Jessica declared, now seeming happy she’d missed the whole story. She looked a bit pale after her trip to the bathroom, like maybe she’d lost her lunch herself
”
”
Stuart Gibbs (Spy Ski School (Spy School, #4))
“
For far too long, we have all been playing out a victim consciousness, convincing ourselves that dependency and powerlessness are absolutely fundamental to the human condition. Nowhere is this belief more deeply ingrained than in the “world” of addiction and in the traditional treatment and recovery programmes available to the masses ... If we do not embrace a new consciousness about addiction, then the old consciousness will simply create more fear, disruption, victimhood and dis-satisfaction on the planet. Ultimately, every one of us begins to teach this new consciousness by living it ourselves, bringing transcendence into daily life, hope to those who have often felt hopeless, and empowerment to those who feel powerless. It is an evolutionary leap forward and I invite YOU to make that leap with me ... NOW.”
— John Flaherty
”
”
John Flaherty (Addiction Unplugged : How To Be Free)
“
Pavlov's findings were confirmed in the most distressing manner, and on a very large scale, during the two World Wars. As the result of a single catastrophic experience, or of a succession of terrors less appalling but frequently repeated, soldiers develop a number of disabling psychophysical symptoms. Temporary unconsciousness, extreme agitation, lethargy, functional blindness or paralysis, completely unrealistic responses to the challenge of events, strange reversals of lifelong patterns of behavior -- all the symptoms, which Pavlov observed in his dogs, reappeared among the victims of what in the First World War was called "shell shock," in the Second, "battle fatigue." Every man, like every dog, has his own individual limit of endurance. Most men reach their limit after about thirty days of more or less continuous stress under the conditions of modern combat. The more than averagely susceptible succumb in only fifteen days. The more than averagely tough can resist for forty-five or even fifty days. Strong or weak, in the long run all of them break down. All, that is to say, of those who are initially sane. For, ironically enough, the only people who can hold up indefinitely under the stress of modern war are psychotics. Individual insanity is immune to the consequences of collective insanity.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World Revisited)
“
[C]hange comes first and foremost from the process of paying meticulous attention to a thought. When we do, we have a greater chance of separating from it, a process that I call dis-identification. This means that we may continue to have the thought but realize that it is only a thought, that is a neurological-biochemical event: it is not who we are.
”
”
Judith Hanson Lasater (Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life)
“
God let down two bundles 'bout five miles down de road. So de white man and de n****r raced to see who would git there first. Well, de n****r out-run de white man and grabbed de biggest bundle. He was so skeered de white man would git it away from him he fell on top of de bundle and hollered back: "Oh, Ah got here first and dis biggest bundle is mine."
De white man says: "All right, Ah'll take yo' leavings," and picked up de li'l tee-ninchy bundle layin' in de road. When de n****r opened up his bundle he found a pick and shovel and a hoe and a plow and chop-axe and then de white man opened up his bundle and found a writin'-pen and ink. So ever since then de n****r been out in de hot sun, usin' his tools and de white man been sittin' up figgerin', ought's a ought, figger's a figger; all for de white man, none for de n****r.
”
”
Zora Neale Hurston (Mules and Men)
“
Except your righteousness exceeds their best, you are not Christians. And can you let them exceed you in those things, which, when they are done, leave them short of Christ and heaven? It is time for the scholar to throw off his gown, and dis claim the name of an academic, when every school-boy is able to dunce and pose him; and for him also to lay aside his profession, and let the world know what he is, yea, what he never was, who can let a mere civil man, with his weak bow only backed with moral principles, outshoot him that pretends to Christ and his grace.
”
”
William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour - The Ultimate Book on Spiritual Warfare)
“
Fear is the root cause of any anxiety, depression, or suffering.
”
”
Courtney Martin (Know Who You Are: A Spiritual Guide to Eradicating Anxiety, Depression, and Dis-ease)
“
Leaving
the
cave
becomes
a
metaphor
within
the
philosophy
of
his-tory;
it denotes
a
new
epoch
of
humanity.
This
is
how
Descartes
used the
metaphor.
He
compares the
Scholastics' fight against
the new
science
to the
ways
of
a blind man,
who,
to
fight
without
a
handicap
against some-
on
e
who
is sighted, makes his
opponent
go
into the depths
of
a very
dark
cave ;
in
publishing
his
method, by
contrast,
he
would
be
doing
almost
th
e
same
as
if
[he]
were
to
open
some
windows
and
make some
light
of
da
y
enter
into that
cave
where
they have
descended to
fight.
38
This
is a significant
new image
in
place
of
the
paideutic
path out
of
the
cave,
for here the
space
itself
is
transformed.
It
does
something
not
only
to
man bu
t
to
the world,
something that
no
Ionger
depends
on
the
individual's
ed
ucation and
will.
This
is
not,
however, a
momentary
act,
but
rather
a historically
continuous
path
of
dis-covering
the
truth,
qui ne
se
dicouvre que peu
a
peu.
The
window
metaphor
takes this
into account
with its im-plic
ation
of
light gradually
gaining
access. Recall
the
significance
of
the
closed, medieval
chamber in
Descartes's
portrayal
of
the turning point in
his
th
i
nking
: I
remained for
a whole day
by
myself
in
a small stove-
hea
ted room
.
39
.Here
the relation
of
the
room
to the world
is still
com
-pletely medieval:
the
direction is
from the outside to the
inside.
”
”
Hans Blumenberg
“
I remain
convinced as well by what I called the point zero argument: Those who would dis-
miss our human power to initiate actions have denied many of the very actions and
effects to which they appeal when seeking to lay individual responsibility at the feet
of others. They both assume and deny personal agency.
”
”
Lenn Evan Goodman (حي بن يقظان)
“
Brodie (1994) conclude that anorexia patients do not have a fixed and implacable distorted image of their own bodies. Rather, they have “uncertain, unstable and weak” body image (p. 41). If we see body image distortion as associated with the “mentalization of the body”, we would predict precisely such changes of bodily experience associated with changes in mental states. There are clinical indications consistent with this point of view. For example, fluctuation of body image appears to be associated with emotional states (Espeset et al. 2012). Anorectic patients may feel fatter when they feel frightened and anxious. As we know that negative affect tends to impair mentalizing in other patient groups, the association of body image distortion with negative affect could be a consequence of the intensification of mentalization failure as triggered by arousal, which then finds representation, not as a feeling of dis-ease but as an experience of physical discomfort and dissatisfaction with one’s body. The person who is most preoccupied with the external body may be the same person who has little contact with his/her own somatosensory signals, the lived body.
”
”
Paul Robinson (Hunger: Mentalization-based Treatments for Eating Disorders)
“
Co-opted by management, work–life
balance represents yet another example of capitalism’s remarkable
ability to take a potentially radical idea, soften it up, and serve it back
to us in the interests of commercial gain. The failing of the work–life
balance rhetoric is that it does not ask fundamental questions about
the purpose of work, nor does it question work’s ability to fulfil its
societal functions; it only gives us permission to ask quietly that we
be allowed to work a bit less (usually to pursue other responsibilities
such as taking care of our families). It tries to accommodate our dis-
affection with the current system within that system, hindering our
ability to really compare alternatives in an open way. It also has little
to offer those people who are forced to work long hours because
their economic circumstances compel them to do so.
”
”
David Frayne (The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work)