Work Pinnacle Quotes

Evolution doesn’t ‘try’ to do anything,” M-Bot said. “But like it or not, you are the pinnacle of its work. All evolutionary pressures throughout all the ages among your species have resulted in you.” “Bet it feels embarrassed,” I said

But say a man does know. He sees the world as it is and he looks back thousands of years to see how it all came about. He watches the slow agglutination of capital and power and he sees its pinnacle today. He sees America as a crazy house. He sees how men have to rob their brothers in order to live. He sees children starving and women working sixty hours a week to get to eat. He sees a whole damn army of unemployed and billions of dollars and thousands of miles of land wasted. He sees war coming. He sees when people suffer just so much they get mean and ugly and something dies in them. But the main thing he sees is that the whole system of the world is built on a lie. And although it's as plain as the shining sun - the don't-knows have lived with that lie so long they just can't see it.

The old adage that people only want what they can’t have or what they can’t tame— is totally primitive. A being of higher origins will know instinctively that life on earth is a series of chances, moments and concepts. That’s really all that you have. So when you find one of these things and it makes you burn, or it makes you feel peace inside, or it makes you look forwards and backwards and here all at the same time— that’s when you know to hold onto it. And you hold onto it with every fiber of your being. Because it’s in the holding on of these chances and moments and concepts that life is lived. Every other kind of living is only in vitro. I don’t care what psychologists say today about how the human mind works. Because one day they will reach this pinnacle and they will see what I see and they will look upon the old ways as primitive. As long and gone. We do not wish to have what we can’t have. We wish to burn in whatever flame we have stepped into.

To place the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering at the pinnacle of your hierarchy of value is to work to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. That’s a state, and a state of mind, at the same time.

A person does not reach the pinnacle of self-realization without relentlessly exploring the parameters of the self, exhausting their psychic energy coming to know oneself. Without society to rebel against and to sail away from, there would be no advances in civilization; there would be no need for healers and mystics, priests and artist, or shaman and writers. It is our curiosity and refusal to be satisfied with the status quo that compels us to challenge ourselves to learn and continue to grow. We only establish inner peace of mind with acceptance of the world, with the recognition of our connection to the entirety of the universe, and understanding that chaos and change are inevitable. We must also love because without love there are no acts of creation. Without love, humankind is a spasmodic pool of brutality and suffering. Love is a balm. It cures human aches and pains; it unites couples, families, and cultures. Love is a creative force, without love there is no art or religion. Art expresses thought and feelings, an articulation of adore and reverence.

Evolution doesn’t ‘try’ to do anything,” M-Bot said. “But like it or not, you are the pinnacle of its work. All evolutionary pressures throughout all the ages among your species have resulted in you.

One of the most pressing questions faced by capitalist societies now, at the pinnacle of their productive capacities, is the question of what should be done with the time being saved by these gains in productivity. What meaning and content will we, as a society, choose to give this new-found free-time? Will we use it to enhance our lives outside work, nourish our relationships and pursue our own self-development, or will economic rationality dictate that we spend just as much time and energy on work as we did before? [ch.one]

Lincoln had risen to this pinnacle through migration, self-education, and hard work.

The actor’s art is the art of deceiving; the art is the deception. To be able to deceive is the great thing, and to allow oneself to be deceived is just as great. Therefore one must not be able and must not want to see the actor through the costume; therefore it is the pinnacle of art when the actor becomes one with what he represents, because this is the pinnacle of deception.

Perhaps science could even discover things about enlightenment that would make enlightenment attainable by large masses of human beings. Perhaps science could democratize enlightenment as it had democratized other aspects of power, comfort, and convenience. This concept utterly changed my world. What had initially brought me to Japan was a fascination with the cultures of the East. In learning how to meditate, I felt I had discovered the pinnacle, the highest thing that Asia could give me. Having directly experienced Asia’s unique offering to the world, I asked myself, “What next?

Dealing as we are with the very first experiment in proletarian dictatorship in world history (and one taking place at that under the hardest conceivable conditions, in the midst of the world-wide conflagration and chaos of the inlperialist mass slaughter, caught in the coils of the nlost reactionary military power in Europe, and accompanied by the completest failure on the part of the international working class), it would be a crazy idea to think that every last thing done or left undone in an experiment with the dictatorship of the proletariat under such abnormal conditions represented the very pinnacle of perfection.

It is crucial we also think beyond workers' rights to confront a broader and more fundamental set of questions: What is so great about work that sees society constantly trying to create more of it? Why, at the pinnacle of productive development, is there still thought to be need for everybody to work for most of the time? What is work for, and what else could we be doing in the future, were we no longer cornered into spending most of our time working? [ch.one]

When we obtain positions of power over others, we believe that we have reached the pinnacle of success. But it is at this time that we need to look back and be aware of the multitudes on whose hard work and sacrifices we have built our castles.

Consider then that the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering is a good. Make that an axiom: to the best of my ability I will act in a manner that leads to the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering. You have now placed at the pinnacle of your moral hierarchy a set of presuppositions and actions aimed at the betterment of Being. Why? Because we know the alternative. The alternative was the twentieth century. The alternative was so close to Hell that the difference is not worth discussing. And the opposite of Hell is Heaven. To place the alleviation of unnecessary pain and suffering at the pinnacle of your hierarchy of value is to work to bring about the Kingdom of God on Earth. That’s a state, and a state of mind, at the same time.

Good writing as well as good acting will be obedience to conscience. There must not be a particle of will or whim mixed with it. If we can listen, we shall hear. By reverently listening to the inner voice, we may reinstate ourselves on the pinnacle of humanity.

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments, and tender officiousness; and therefore no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained. Kindness is preserved by a constant reciprocation of benefits or interchange of pleasures; but such benefits can only be bestowed as others are capable to receive, and such pleasures only imparted as others are qualified to enjoy. By this descent from the pinnacles of art no honour will be lost; for the condescensions of learning are always overpaid by gratitude. An elevated genius employed in little things appears, to use the simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendour but remains his magnitude, and pleases more, though he dazzles less.

Ladies and gentlemen, I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing. Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

We human beings are a mystery to ourselves. We are rational and irrational, civilized and savage, capable of deep friendship and murderous hostility, free and in bondage, the pinnacle of creation and its greatest danger. We are Rembrandt and Hitler, Mozart and Stalin, Antigone and Lady Macbeth, Ruth and Jezebel. “What a work of art,” says Shakespeare of humanity. “We are very dangerous,” says Arthur Miller in After the Fall. “We meet . . . not in some garden of wax fruit and painted leaves that lies East of Eden, but after the Fall, after many, many deaths.

YouTube: “Dr. Jordan Peterson | Is Neo-Marxism on the rise?” I think the group identity game ends in blood. It doesn’t matter who plays it. Left-wingers play it: blood. Right-wingers play it: blood. And lots of it, not just a little of it. You can’t play the identity politics game. Well, so what do you do instead? You live the mythologically heroic life as an individual. That’s the right place to work. And that’s the message of the West, as far as I’m concerned is that we figure that out. We figured out that the collective identity was not the pinnacle statement.

That settled, the number of chapels, doors, bell towers, and pinnacles are modified to infinity, according to the fancy of the century, the people, and art. The service of religion once assured and provided for, architecture does what she pleases. Statues, stained glass, rose windows, arabesques, denticulations, capitals, bas-reliefs,—she combines all these imaginings according to the arrangement which best suits her. Hence, the prodigious exterior variety of these edifices, at whose foundation dwells so much order and unity. The trunk of a tree is immovable; the foliage is capricious.

Dealing as we are with the very first experiment in proletarian dictatorship in world history (and one taking place at that under the hardest conceivable conditions, in the midst of the world-wide conflagration and chaos of the imperialist mass slaughter, caught in the coils of the most reactionary military power in Europe, and accompanied by the completest failure on the part of the international working class), it would be a crazy idea to think that every last thing done or left undone in an experiment with the dictatorship of the proletariat under such abnormal conditions represented the very pinnacle of perfection.

The study of algebra in its own right, as a symbolic system apart from its applications, began to flourish in Renaissance Europe. It reached its pinnacle in the 1500s, when it started to look like what we know today, with letters used to represent numbers. In France in 1591, François Viète designated unknown quantities with vowels, like A and E, and used consonants, like B and G, for constants. (Today’s use of x, y, z for unknowns and a, b, c for constants came from the work of René Descartes about fifty years later.) Replacing words with letters and symbols made it much easier to manipulate equations and find solutions.

This aspect of love will never work to solve your problems, for even when you reach the pinnacle, the zenith of human love, feeling joyful, relatively happy and content in your life, you will, one day, realize you cannot go any further, that there is something missing, that there is something more. It is at this point that you will become confused, wondering what is next, why you have stopped evolving. This is when God can come in, if you choose so, and are humble enough. Of course, some people will never feel this and will stay in a nice state for a long time, thinking that this is it – they have reached the pinnacle. But it is not.

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, ocean, and all the living things that dwell within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, the torpor of the year when feeble dreams visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep holds every future leaf and flower; the bound with which from that detested trance they leap; the works and ways of man, their death and birth, and that of him and all that his may be; all things that move and breathe with toil and sound are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, remote, serene, and inaccessible: and this, the naked countenance of earth, on which I gaze, even these primeval mountains teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, slow rolling on; there, many a precipice frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, a city of death, distinct with many a tower and wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin is there, that from the boundaries of the sky rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down from yon remotest waste, have overthrown the limits of the dead and living world, never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; their food and their retreat for ever gone, so much of life and joy is lost. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, and their place is not known. Below, vast caves shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, which from those secret chasms in tumult welling meet in the vale, and one majestic river, the breath and blood of distant lands, for ever rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

Optimal Tower is a skyscraper unlike its predecessors, rising skyward as an artistic endeavor, spirited and soulful, with a steel and glass manifestation reminiscent of Claude Monet's water lilies, and instantly dismissive of the gray, steel and mortar structures of the past. The architects and builders have pilfered Monet's color pallet and painted this vertical stretch of the Cavanaugh skyline with the delicate greens and blues and grays and yellows of Giverny. Somehow, in the structure, the sensibility of an impressionist painting emerges as the muted colors are faded in splotches and sunlit in others, with gradual transitions as subtle as the delicate brush strokes of the master himself. Steel beams crisscross haphazardly throughout the towering facade, which only reinforces its intrinsic impressionistic essence by emulating the natural randomness of the lily pond. Atop the structure, a simple fifty foot spire seems to rein in the freeform work beneath it as it merges the natural splendor into one straight pinnacle skyward. This one hundred and fifteen story building reaches twenty-five stories above its surroundings, creating a gloriously artful and peaked skyline not unlike the Alps in France that will be instantly recognizable the world over and cause onlookers to gasp and utter, "C'est Magnifique.

The early breeze sighing among the foliage, that waved high over the path, and the hollow dashing of distant waters, he listened to with complacency, for these were sounds which soothed yet promoted his melancholy mood; and he some times rested to gaze upon the scenery around him, for this too was in harmony with the temper of his mind. Disappointment had subdued the wilder energy of the passions, and produced a solemn and lofty state of feeling; he viewed with pleasing sadness the dark rocks and precipices, the gloomy mountains and vast solitudes, that spread around him; nor was the convent he was approaching a less sacred feature of the scene, as its gray walks and pinnacles appeared beyond the dusky groves.

The young man had not been long at Donnaz without discovering that in that little world of crystallised traditions the chaplain was the only person conscious of the new forces abroad. It had never occurred to the Marquess that anything short of a cataclysm such as it would be blasphemy to predict could change the divinely established order whereby the territorial lord took tithes from his peasantry and pastured his game on their crops. The hierarchy which rested on the bowed back of the toiling serf and culminated in the figure of the heaven-sent King seemed to him as immutable as the everlasting hills. The men of his generation had not learned that it was built on a human foundation and that a sudden movement of the underlying mass might shake the structure to its pinnacle. The

All of us [writers] failed to match our dream of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible. In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That’s why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course he won’t, which is why this condition is healthy. Once he did it, once he matched the work to the image, the dream, nothing would remain but to cut his throat, jump off the other side of that pinnacle of perfection into suicide. I’m a failed poet. Maybe every novelist wants to write poetry first, finds he can’t, and then tries the short story, which is the most demanding form after poetry. And, failing at that, only then does he take up novel writing.

As M. I. Finley11 points out with regard to ancient Greece, it was a culture that reached the pinnacle of artistic achievement, yet totally lacked museums: “Art was meshed in with daily living, not set apart for occasional leisure time or for the enjoyment of rich collectors and aesthetes.” In contrast, musical performance for the purpose of mere entertainment was seen by the ancients not simply as a lesser art but in fact as a low art. Tacitus, for example, describes as a “national disgrace” 11 the emperor Nero’s desire to perform music on a public stage. In fact, the “connectedness principle” is not very far from Aristotle’s 11 ancient view of the complicated, various roles of music, which included alleviating toils and pains, providing refreshment, strengthening the soul, firming the character, and—yes, but almost as an afterthought—also offering entertainment. If we have forgotten all but the last of these roles in our media-dominated commercial culture, we need do nothing more than listen with open ears to the pathos and intrinsic dignity of the work song to be called back to this richer view of the role of music.

There can be no doubt that the thinking of the introvert aspires to this Hyperion; it is only a pity that the “unity of idea” is the ideal of such a very limited class of men. Thinking is merely a function which, when fully developed and exclusively obeying its own laws, naturally sets up a claim to universal validity. Only one part of the world, therefore, can be grasped by thinking, another part only by feeling, a third only through sensation, and so on. That is probably why there are different psychic functions; for, biologically, the psychic system can be understood only as a system of adaptation, just as eyes exist presumably because there is light. Thinking can claim only a third or a fourth part of the total significance, although in its own sphere it possesses exclusive validity—just as sight is the exclusively valid function for the perception of light waves, and hearing for that of sound waves. Consequently a man who puts the unity of idea on a pinnacle, and for whom “feeling-sensation” is something antipathetic to his personality, can be compared to a man who has good eyes but is totally deaf and suffers from anaesthesia.

When, in the year 1939, France and England declared war on Germany without any reason and thus unleashed the Second World War, they unconsciously did good by unleashing this greatest conflict in history precisely at that moment when the Reich stood at the pinnacle of its power. As we know today, this war had long been decided on by the rulers in the Kremlin. With every new year, things would have become more difficult. All other events pale in comparison with the greatness of this gigantic struggle. Should the new Central Asian rush on Europe succeed, then the present world would crack, just as the old one cracked when confronted by the Hun invasion. Mankind’s work over thousands of years would again have been in vain. Chaos would take the place of the most thriving continent on earth. Its culture would be replaced by inconceivable barbarity. What has been achieved since the year 1933 in the economic, cultural, and political realms pales, in spite of its greatness, in comparison with the task that we face today. Even if National Socialism had achieved no more than what lies behind it, it would already belong among the greatest phenomena in world history, but Europe would still be lost. Adolf Hitler – proclamation for the 10-th anniversary of the Power Taking January 30, 1943

The Northern Lights which had drawn them from their childhood beds in lower latitudes on so many deep winter nights, while summoning in their parents obscure feelings of dread, could now be viewed up here at any time from within, at altitude, in heavenwide pulses of color, dense sheets and billows and colonnades of light and current, in transfiguration unceasing. In small, remote corners of the planet nobody was paying much attention to, between factions nobody knew much about, the undeclared and largely imperceptible war had been under way for years. All up and down the Northern latitudes, clandestine transmitters had been deployed amid pinnacles of ice, in abandoned mining works, in the secret courtyards of ancient Iron-Age fortresses, manned and unmanned, lonely and unearthly in the iceblink. On sky-piercing crags as likely to be frozen seabird guano as rock, scouts of Earth’s Field, desperate, insomniac, interrogated horizons as to any signs of their relief, who were often years late. . . . And indeed for some, the Polar night would last forever—they would pass from the Earth amid unreportable splendor, the aurora in the sky raging up and down spectra visible and invisible. Souls bound to the planetary lines of force, swept pole to pole and through the fabled interior regions as well. . . 

Honorable, happy, and successful marriage is surely the principal goal of every normal person. Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far-reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but also with eternal joys. It affects not only the two people involved, but also their families and particularly their children and their children’s children down through the many generations. In selecting a companion for life and for eternity, certainly the most careful planning and thinking and praying and fasting should be done to be sure that of all the decisions, this one must not be wrong. In true marriage there must be a union of minds as well as of hearts. Emotions must not wholly determine decisions, but the mind and the heart, strengthened by fasting and prayer and serious consideration, will give one a maximum chance of marital happiness. It brings with it sacrifice, sharing, and a demand for great selflessness. . . . Some think of happiness as a glamorous life of ease, luxury, and constant thrills; but true marriage is based on a happiness which is more than that, one which comes from giving, serving, sharing, sacrificing, and selflessness. . . . One comes to realize very soon after marriage that the spouse has weaknesses not previously revealed or discovered. The virtues which were constantly magnified during courtship now grow relatively smaller, and the weaknesses which seemed so small and insignificant during courtship now grow to sizable proportions. The hour has come for understanding hearts, for self-appraisal, and for good common sense, reasoning, and planning. . . . “Soul mates” are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price. There is a never-failing formula which will guarantee to every couple a happy and eternal marriage; but like all formulas, the principal ingredients must not be left out, reduced, or limited. The selection before courting and then the continued courting after the marriage process are equally important, but not more important than the marriage itself, the success of which depends upon the two individuals—not upon one, but upon two. . . . The formula is simple; the ingredients are few, though there are many amplifications of each. First, there must be the proper approach toward marriage, which contemplates the selection of a spouse who reaches as nearly as possible the pinnacle of perfection in all the matters which are of importance to the individuals. And then those two parties must come to the altar in the temple realizing that they must work hard toward this successful joint living. Second, there must be a great unselfishness, forgetting self and directing all of the family life and all pertaining thereunto to the good of the family, subjugating self. Third, there must be continued courting and expressions of affection, kindness, and consideration to keep love alive and growing. Fourth, there must be a complete living of the commandments of the Lord as defined in the gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . Two individuals approaching the marriage altar must realize that to attain the happy marriage which they hope for they must know that marriage is not a legal coverall, but it means sacrifice, sharing, and even a reduction of some personal liberties. It means long, hard economizing. It means children who bring with them financial burdens, service burdens, care and worry burdens; but also it means the deepest and sweetest emotions of all. . . . To be really happy in marriage, one must have a continued faithful observance of the commandments of the Lord. No one, single or married, was ever sublimely happy unless he was righteous.

In the chaos of sport, as in life, process provides us a way. It says: Okay, you’ve got to do something very difficult. Don’t focus on that. Instead break it down into pieces. Simply do what you need to do right now. And do it well. And then move on to the next thing. Follow the process and not the prize. The road to back-to-back championships is just that, a road. And you travel along a road in steps. Excellence is a matter of steps. Excelling at this one, then that one, and then the one after that. Saban’s process is exclusively this—existing in the present, taking it one step at a time, not getting distracted by anything else. Not the other team, not the scoreboard or the crowd. The process is about finishing. Finishing games. Finishing workouts. Finishing film sessions. Finishing drives. Finishing reps. Finishing plays. Finishing blocks. Finishing the smallest task you have right in front of you and finishing it well. Whether it’s pursuing the pinnacle of success in your field or simply surviving some awful or trying ordeal, the same approach works. Don’t think about the end—think about surviving. Making it from meal to meal, break to break, checkpoint to checkpoint, paycheck to paycheck, one day at a time. And when you really get it right, even the hardest things become manageable. Because the process is relaxing. Under its influence, we needn’t panic. Even mammoth tasks become just a series of component parts.

Ken Wharfe Before Diana disappeared from sight, I called her on the radio. Her voice was bright and lively, and I knew instinctively that she was happy, and safe. I walked back to the car and drove slowly along the only road that runs adjacent to the bay, with heath land and then the sea to my left and the waters of Poole Harbour running up toward Wareham, a small market town, to my right. Within a matter of minutes, I was turning into the car park of the Bankes Arms, a fine old pub that overlooks the bay. I left the car and strolled down to the beach, where I sat on an old wall in the bright sunshine. The beach huts were locked, and there was no sign of life. To my right I could see the Old Harry Rocks--three tall pinnacles of chalk standing in the sea, all that remains, at the landward end, of a ridge that once ran due east to the Isle of Wight. Like the Princess, I, too, just wanted to carry on walking. Suddenly, my radio crackled into life: “Ken, it’s me--can you hear me?” I fumbled in the large pockets of my old jacket, grabbed the radio, and said, “Yes. How is it going?” “Ken, this is amazing, I can’t believe it,” she said, sounding truly happy. Genuinely pleased for her, I hesitated before replying, but before I could speak she called again, this time with that characteristic mischievous giggle in her voice. “You never told me about the nudist colony!” she yelled, and laughed raucously over the radio. I laughed, too--although what I actually thought was “Uh-oh!” But judging from her remarks, whatever she had seen had made her laugh. At this point, I decided to walk toward her, after a few minutes seeing her distinctive figure walking along the water’s edge toward me. Two dogs had joined her and she was throwing sticks into the sea for them to retrieve; there were no crowd barriers, no servants, no police, apart from me, and no overattentive officials. Not a single person had recognized her. For once, everything for the Princess was “normal.” During the seven years I had worked for her, this was an extraordinary moment, one I shall never forget.

Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim, Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, This which my keys in a crowd pressed and importuned to raise! Ah, one and all, how they helped, would dispart now and now combine, Zealous to hasten the work, heighten their master his praise! And one would bury his brow with a blind plunge down to hell, Burrow awhile and build, broad on the roots of things, Then up again swim into sight, having based me my palace well, Founded it, fearless of flame, flat on the nether springs. And another would mount and march, like the excellent minion he was, Ay, another and yet another, one crowd but with many a crest, Raising my rampired walls of gold as transparent as glass, Eager to do and die, yield each his place to the rest: For higher still and higher (as a runner tips with fire, When a great illumination surprises a festal night— Outlining round and round Rome's dome from space to spire) Up, the pinnacled glory reached, and the pride of my soul was in sight. In sight? Not half! for it seemed, it was certain, to match man's birth, Nature in turn conceived, obeying an impulse as I; And the emulous heaven yearned down, made effort to reach the earth, As the earth had done her best, in my passion, to scale the sky: Novel splendours burst forth, grew familiar and dwelt with mine, Not a point nor peak but found and fixed its wandering star; Meteor-moons, balls of blaze: and they did not pale nor pine, For earth had attained to heaven, there was no more near nor far. Nay more; for there wanted not who walked in the glare and glow, Presences plain in the place; or, fresh from the Protoplast, Furnished for ages to come, when a kindlier wind should blow, Lured now to begin and live, in a house to their liking at last; Or else the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body and gone, But were back once more to breathe in an old world worth their new: What never had been, was now; what was, as it shall be anon;

Sharon passed around a handout: "Triangle of Self-Actualization" by Abraham Maslow. The levels of human motivation. It resembled the nutrition triangle put out by the FDA, with five horizontal levels of multiple colors. I vaguely remembered it from my one college psychology course in the 1970's. "Very applicable with refugees," Sharon said. "Maslow theorized that one could not move to a higher level until the prior level was satisfied. The first level, the triangle base, is physiological needs. Like food and water. Until a person has enough to eat and drink, that's all one would be concerned with." I'd never experienced not being able to satisfy my thirst or hunger, but it sounded logical that that would be my only concern in such a situation. For the Lost Boys, just getting enough food and water had been a daily struggle. I wondered what kind of impact being stuck at the bottom level for the last fourteen years would have on a person, especially a child and teen. "The second level is safety and security. Home. A sanctuary. A safe place." Like not being shot at or having lions attack you. They hadn't had much of level two, either. Even Kakuma hadn't been safe. A refugee camp couldn't feel like home. "The third level is social. A sense of belonging." Since they'd been together, they must have felt like they belonged, but perhaps not on a larger scale, having been displaced from home and living in someone else's country. "Once a person has food, shelter, family and friends, they can advance to the fourth level, which is ego. Self-esteem." I'd never thought of those things occurring sequentially, but rather simultaneously, as they did in my life. If I understood correctly, working on their self-esteem had not been a large concern to them, if one at all. That was bound to affect them eventually. In what way remained to be seen. They'd been so preoccupied with survival that issues of self-worth might overwhelm them at first. A sure risk for insecurity and depression. The information was fascinating and insightful, although worrisome in terms of Benson, Lino, and Alepho. It also made me wonder about us middle-and upper-class Americans. We seldom worried about food, except for eating too much, and that was not what Maslow had been referring to. Most of us had homes and safety and friends and family. That could mean we were entirely focused on that fourth level: ego. Our efforts to make ourselves seem strong, smart, rich, and beautiful, or young were our own kind of survival skill. Perhaps advancing directly to the fourth level, when the mind was originally engineered for the challenges of basic survival, was why Prozac and Zoloft, both antidepressants, were two of the biggest-selling drugs in America. "The pinnacle of the triangle," Sharon said, "is the fifth level. Self-actualization. A strong and deeply felt belief that as a person one has value in the world. Contentment with who one is rather than what one has. Secure in ones beliefs. Not needing ego boosts from external factors. Having that sense of well-being that does not depend on the approval of others is commonly called happiness." Happiness, hard to define, yet obvious when present. Most of us struggled our entire lives to achieve it, perhaps what had brought some of us to a mentoring class that night.

Yet in reality, the likelihood of reaching the pinnacle of capitalist society today is only marginally better than were the chances of being accepted into the French nobility four centuries ago, though at least an aristocratic age was franker, and therefore kinder, about the odds. It did not relentlessly play up the possibilities open to all those with a take on the future of the potato crisp, and so, in turn, did not cruelly equate an ordinary life with a failed one. Our era is perverse in passing off an exception as a rule.

March 27 Vision by Personal Character Come up hither, and I will shew thee things. Revelation 4:1 An elevated mood can only come out of an elevated habit of personal character. If in the externals of your life you live up to the highest you know, God will continually say—“Friend, go up higher.” The golden rule in temptation is—“Go higher.” When you get higher up, you face other temptations and characteristics. Satan uses the strategy of elevation in temptation, and God does the same, but the effect is different. When the devil puts you into an elevated place, he makes you screw your idea of holiness beyond what flesh and blood could ever bear. It is a spiritual acrobatic performance, you are just poised and dare not move; but when God elevates you by His grace into the heavenly places, instead of finding a pinnacle to cling to, you find a great table-land where it is easy to move. Compare this week in your spiritual history with the same week last year and see how God has called you up higher. We have all been brought to see from a higher standpoint. Never let God give you one point of truth which you do not instantly live up to. Always work it out, keep in the light of it. Growth in grace is measured not by the fact that you have not gone back, but that you have an insight into where you are spiritually; you have heard God say “Come up higher,” not to you personally, but to the insight of your character. “Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?” God has to hide from us what He does until by personal character we get to the place where He can reveal it.

A typical Celestine will devote a large proportion of their time to passing through the inscribed sectors of the planet studying the writings, either alone or accompanied by companions with whom to share comments. This is a favourite pastime among them, and as they travel towards the boundaries of the inscribed regions they can watch the ongoing work of those Celestines that have been chosen to record their ideas – tirelessly twisting, pausing to gather energy, then exerting themselves again; painstakingly working the same patch of dust several thousand times over to shape each individual furrow; to capture, symbol by symbol, the knowledge they have contributed to the Celestine corpus. There is great pride and precision, as well as immense labour, in their toil. Before they commence work, the piece of ground that will house the writing will be chosen very carefully for its aspect. Then, the most favourable angle to the light will be calculated, for the orientation of the wording. The language used is of the most poetic and grandiose sort, quite different from the vernacular, and the symbols themselves are embellished with flourishes, extravagances and curlicues that are unique to the creator. Celestines love to observe this work, which constitutes the pinnacle of their art and of their ceaseless thought-endeavours, and embodies their very reason for being.

Then the Bible says Satan took Jesus upon a pinnacle of the temple and tempted Jesus again.   MATTHEW 4:7-11 7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. 8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; 9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me. 10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. 11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.   Jesus did not use a single weapon to defeat the devil on this occasion that the saints of God do not have available to them today. When you are being tempted by the enemy, all you have to do is say, “It is written” and use the Word of God against Satan. But in order to be able to say that and to resist the devil effectively, you have to be armed with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. In other words, you have to hide God’s Word in your heart by meditating on it continually in order for it to work for you. Then you will be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy.

Many females have a problem not only with stereotypes, but with other people’s opinions of them in general. They trust them too much... This vulnerability afflicts many of the most able, high-achieving females. Why should this be? When they’re little, these girls are often so perfect, and they delight in everyone’s telling them so. They’re so well behaved, they’re so cute, they’re so helpful, and they’re so precocious. Girls learn to trust people’s estimates of them. “Gee, everyone’s so nice to me; if they criticize me, it must be true.” Even females at the top universities in the country say that other people’s opinions are a good way to know their abilities. Boys are constantly being scolded and punished. When we observed in grade school classrooms, we saw that boys got eight times more criticism than girls for their conduct. Boys are also constantly calling each other slobs and morons. The evaluations lose a lot of their power. Even when women reach the pinnacle of success, other people’s attitudes can get them... The fixed mindset, plus stereotyping, plus women’s trust in people’s assessments: I think we can begin to understand why there’s a gender gap in math and science. That gap is painfully evident in the world of high tech. Julie Lynch, a budding techie, was already writing computer code when she was in junior high school. Her father and two brothers worked in technology, and she loved it, too. Then her computer programming teacher criticized her. She had written a computer program and the program ran just fine, but he didn’t like a shortcut she had taken. Her interest evaporated. Instead, she went on to study recreation and public relations. Math and science need to be made more hospitable places for women. And women need all the growth mindset they can get to take their rightful places in these fields.

I need to get the *&%! out of here.” Look around. Are you surrounded by a real threat? If yes, please do get out of there quickly. If not—and this is obviously the most probable outcome—stay. Let it come. Decide to no longer let your life be dictated by the panic attacks. From now on, you no longer run from them. The anxiety and panic attacks don’t get to decide when you leave, what experiences you miss, how low or high the quality of your life is. You do! If the panic attack comes, you take it with you. You’ll smother it with so much acceptance and love, it will eventually grow tired of accompanying you! Besides the “whatever happens it’s OK,” it’s also beneficial to say, “Bring it on. I’m going to stay, and I want to see what happens. Let’s find out if it really is as bad as my negative voice wants me to believe.” This is powerful, and I’ve discussed it in detail before. What you’re feeling during a panic attack is already the pinnacle of what anxiety has in store. It cannot get worse; you’re already there. Furthermore, a full-blown panic attack can only last a couple of minutes. The adrenaline you’re feeling will be taken back up by organs like your liver; it will pass! Even if you stay. Do you know what the benefit of leaving is? Why does your anxiety often calm down when you do leave? Once you reach your safe place, you’ll probably think it’s over. You’re saved. As a result, your anxiety will drop. Can you see why? It’s because you told yourself so! You calmed yourself down by telling yourself you’re safe. The physical danger, in that safe place, is as small as it was in the place you were previously in. So why not stay there and calm your mind and body down there, on the spot? It works just as well. And the added benefit is that you won’t have to keep avoiding that location in the future. At first, it will take you five to twenty minutes to calm down, which is a bit more than if you sought out the exit and left. But the long-term consequences are so much better since you communicate to your mind and body that you no longer fear the fear. And that’s always the best choice to make.

Do you think I should explore forgiveness more?" Why was she asking this of me, of all the beings in the known universe? In concept, it sounded like the absolute pinnacle of civilization, the best humanity could hope for. How would it work out in reality?

My task is to show and prove that every work of art - and music as its pinnacle - is a gigantic incredibly vibrating transmitter. This transmitter through brilliant people gives our body, spirit a gigantic connection with the idea of cosmicity, significance, harmony, inner content. It's the most important.

Understanding Financial Risks and Companies Mitigate them? Financial risks are the possible threats, losses and debts corporations face during setting up policies and seeking new business opportunities. Financial risks lead to negative implications for the corporations that can lead to loss of financial assets, liabilities and capital. Mitigation of risks and their avoidance in the early stages of product deployment, strategy-planning and other vital phases is top-priority for financial advisors and managers. Here's how to mitigate risks in financial corporates:- ● Keeping track of Business Operations Evaluating existing business operations in the corporations will provide a holistic view of the movement of cash-flows, utilisation of financial assets, and avoiding debts and losses. ● Stocking up Emergency Funds Just as families maintain an emergency fund for dealing with uncertainties, the same goes for large corporates. Coping with uncertainty such as the ongoing pandemic is a valuable lesson that has taught businesses to maintain emergency funds to avoid economic lapses. ● Taking Data-Backed Decisions Senior financial advisors and managers must take well-reformed decisions backed by data insights. Data-based technologies such as data analytics, science, and others provide resourceful insights about various economic activities and help single out the anomalies and avoid risks. Enrolling for a course in finance through a reputed university can help young aspiring financial risk advisors understand different ways of mitigating risks and threats. The IIM risk management course provides meaningful insights into the other risks involved in corporations. What are the Financial Risks Involved in Corporations? Amongst the several roles and responsibilities undertaken by the financial management sector, identifying and analysing the volatile financial risks. Financial risk management is the pinnacle of the financial world and incorporates the following risks:- ● Market Risk Market risk refers to the threats that emerge due to corporational work-flows, operational setup and work-systems. Various financial risks include- an economic recession, interest rate fluctuations, natural calamities and others. Market risks are also known as "systematic risk" and need to be dealt with appropriately. When there are significant changes in market rates, these risks emerge and lead to economic losses. ● Credit Risk Credit risk is amongst the common threats that organisations face in the current financial scenarios. This risk emerges when a corporation provides credit to its borrower, and there are lapses while receiving owned principal and interest. Credit risk arises when a borrower falters to make the payment owed to them. ● Liquidity Risk Liquidity risk crops up when investors, business ventures and large organisations cannot meet their debt compulsions in the short run. Liquidity risk emerges when a particular financial asset, security or economic proposition can't be traded in the market. ● Operational Risk Operational risk arises due to financial losses resulting from employee's mistakes, failures in implementing policies, reforms and other procedures. Key Takeaway The various financial risks discussed above help professionals learn the different risks, threats and losses. Enrolling for a course in finance assists learners understand the different risks. Moreover, pursuing the IIM risk management course can expose professionals to the scope of international financial management in India and other key concepts.

Whether it’s pursuing the pinnacle of success in your field or simply surviving some awful or trying ordeal, the same approach works. Don’t think about the end—think about surviving. Making it from meal to meal, break to break, checkpoint to checkpoint, paycheck to paycheck, one day at a time.

In all her years of living someone else's life, she'd believed she was already operating at the highest pinnacle of difficulty - that she was working as hard as humanly possible to survive. She could never have imagined how it might become even more difficult yet. It felt as though she'd climbed a mountain, only to realize that all she'd climbed were the foothills and the real peak lay far above. The though filled her with such a deep exhaustion that for a moment it felt like despair.

At twelve o’clock we went below, and had just got through dinner, when the cook put his head down the scuttle and told us to come on deck and see the finest sight that we had ever seen. “Where away, cook?” asked the first man who was up. “On the larboard bow.” And there lay, floating in the ocean, several miles off, an immense, irregular mass, its top and points covered with snow, and its center of a deep indigo color. This was an iceberg, and of the largest size, as one of our men said who had been in the Northern ocean. As far as the eye could reach, the sea in every direction was of a deep blue color, the waves running high and fresh, and sparkling in the light, and in the midst lay this immense mountain-island, its cavities and valleys thrown into deep shade, and its points and pinnacles glittering in the sun.

Psychologists have long pointed to self-actualization as the pinnacle of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. However, Maslow discovered later in his life that he was wrong.29 There was, in fact, a deeper motivation, which he called transcendence—a commitment to the greater good. “The fully developed (and very fortunate) human being, working under the best conditions tends to be motivated by values which transcend his self.”30 This theory went beyond the ego self to encompass our relationship to one another and the bigger world that we are a part of. Of course that is not the version we hear most often in the field of psychology. Nor do we hear that much of Maslow’s work was influenced by the wisdom of the Siksika Nation (a part of the Blackfoot confederacy in Canada), who understood one’s needs not as hierarchical but as circular and contextual at the levels of self, community, and culture equally.31

Keep working smart until you reach the pinnacle of the mountain, wherein lies your accomplished goals.

Mammy is the obedient, loyal domestic who loves most to serve her White family.23 Unfailingly maternal, she has no personal desires and is not herself desirable; her broad, corpulent body is meant solely for work and the comfort of others.24 Mammy is asexual, and to underscore this, she is generally depicted as dark skinned and with African features, a headscarf covering what we imagine to be nappy hair—the negative of the pale, fine-featured, light-eyed, and straight-haired Whiteness seen as the pinnacle of beauty.

That, right there, is the magic of heartbreak: it forces you to be a different person. Unless you want to mourn forever, you have to change. And if you do it right, you’ll work on becoming the person you always wanted to be. You’ll look back on this moment as the pinnacle, the turning point, the unanswered prayer that was the answer itself. It will be the greatest thing that ever happened to you because instead of a lukewarm relationship that wasn’t working anyway, you got the life of your dreams… and you were the one who gave it to yourself.

A brand new pie is waiting for me each night after work, as if he knows he hit his stride and he is going to exploit that knowledge. Fudge pie, pumpkin, apple, pecan, chocolate, strawberry, rhubarb, lemon, peach... I go through a week of pies, then two. I dream about our pretty baby, and end up sobbing over Mama every time I take a shower. Why can't things be right? Like books or movies. Why can't things just ever, once, be right? That afternoon, I find the pinnacle of pies: a peanut butter Reese's one. I'm glad I've got a reason for the growing belly. Truthfully, I think it's mostly pie.

The first major step towards achieving true world peace, and one of the most important pinnacles in the evolution of mankind, is to shift people's perception of how they view wealth. If we can change the way consumers place value on material versus spiritual wealth, we can demolish the media. We can make the government work for us. We can have Big Business serving the vested interests of the people and we can put a halt to advertising puffery, toxic chemicals in our medicines and foods, wars, violence, and corruption. Peacemakers come from all trades. We can be and will be self-sufficient. It starts now. We far outweigh those setting the rules and limitations.

Another small business owner around that table owned several fast food restaurants. She had a problem. She owned enough fast food restaurants that she had over 50 employees. I will mention the restaurant business and the fast food business side in particular is quite labor dependent. I doubt if there is a sector in this economy that has been hurt more than the labor in the fast food business. But her problem was she had enough stores so she was over 50 employees, so that strategy wouldn't work for her. She described how she has already forcibly reduced the hours of every one of her employees to 29 hours per week.   I will tell you this woman almost began to tear up. She was emotional. She was not happy about this, to put it mildly. She said: Listen, we have been in business a long time. Many of these employees we have known 10 or 20 years. These are single moms. These are people--look, if you are working in a fast food restaurant you are not at the pinnacle of your career. You are struggling to pay the bills. These are single moms who are working hard and they can't feed their kids on 29 hours a week. But, you know, they can't feed their kids if I go out of business either. If we are subject to ObamaCare, we go out of business.   Why

(Taken from Chapter Three 'The Bewildered Herd', After the massacre, Rebeka's reflects on her work at Project Code-X...) We were rounded up like frightened animals, who didn’t know what their fate was going to be. I was comforted a little by having Michael’s company. It afforded me some protection from the pandemonium of grief and raw emotion that was all around me. I was able to hide my face from it, and perhaps hide my guilt too. Was I really to blame for all of this? Project Code-X wasn’t just written on my hands, it was carved into my heart and flowing through my veins. It was my life’s work, my ambition, my achievement, the pinnacle of my career. I had given my life to it and it had taken my life from me. In truth, I was no more than its slave. Project Code-X wasn’t just a secret Government project; it was a living and breathing entity. It was a life-force, a parasite, an animal, a wild beast that fed on human lives. It drank human blood and fed on human flesh. It sucked you in and spat you out – all in the name of science.

She won an amateur night at Keeney’s Theater in Brooklyn, singing When You Know You’re Not Forgotten by the Girl You Can’t Forget. Her prize was $10, and she gathered $23 in coins from the floor of the stage. She worked for George M. Cohan but was fired when Cohan learned that she couldn’t dance. After singing with a road show, she appeared in New York musical revues. A struggling young songwriter, Irving Berlin, gave her a musical piece called Sadie Salome and suggested she sing it in Yiddish dialect at the Columbia Burlesque House, where she was working. In the audience that night was Florenz Ziegfeld, whose Follies were at the pinnacle of Broadway entertainment.

Ken Wharfe In 1987, Ken Wharfe was appointed a personal protection officer to Diana. In charge of the Princess’s around-the-clock security at home and abroad, in public and in private, Ken Wharfe became a close friend and loyal confidant who shared her most private moments. After Diana’s death, Inspector Wharfe was honored by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and made a Member of the Victorian Order, a personal gift of the sovereign for his loyal service to her family. His book, Diana: Closely Guarded Secret, is a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. He is a regular contributor with the BBC, ITN, Sky News, NBC, CBS, and CNN, participating in numerous outside broadcasts and documentaries for BBC--Newsnight, Channel 4 News, Channel 5 News, News 24, and GMTV. It was a strange sensation watching her walking away by herself, with no bodyguards following at a discreet distance. What were my responsibilities here? I kept thinking. Yet I knew this area well, and not once did I feel uneasy. I had made this decision--not one of my colleagues knew. Senior officers at Scotland Yard would most certainly have boycotted the idea had I been foolish enough to give them advance notice of what the Princess and I were up to. Before Diana disappeared from sight, I called her on the radio. Her voice was bright and lively, and I knew instinctively that she was happy, and safe. I walked back to the car and drove slowly along the only road that runs adjacent to the bay, with heath land and then the sea to my left and the waters of Poole Harbour running up toward Wareham, a small market town, to my right. Within a matter of minutes, I was turning into the car park of the Bankes Arms, a fine old pub that overlooks the bay. I left the car and strolled down to the beach, where I sat on an old wall in the bright sunshine. The beach huts were locked, and there was no sign of life. To my right I could see the Old Harry Rocks--three tall pinnacles of chalk standing in the sea, all that remains, at the landward end, of a ridge that once ran due east to the Isle of Wight. Like the Princess, I, too, just wanted to carry on walking. Suddenly, my radio crackled into life: “Ken, it’s me--can you hear me?” I fumbled in the large pockets of my old jacket, grabbed the radio, and said, “Yes. How is it going?” “Ken, this is amazing, I can’t believe it,” she said, sounding truly happy. Genuinely pleased for her, I hesitated before replying, but before I could speak she called again, this time with that characteristic mischievous giggle in her voice. “You never told me about the nudist colony!” she yelled, and laughed raucously over the radio. I laughed, too--although what I actually thought was “Uh-oh!” But judging from her remarks, whatever she had seen had made her laugh. At this point, I decided to walk toward her, after a few minutes seeing her distinctive figure walking along the water’s edge toward me. Two dogs had joined her and she was throwing sticks into the sea for them to retrieve; there were no crowd barriers, no servants, no police, apart from me, and no overattentive officials. Not a single person had recognized her. For once, everything for the Princess was “normal.” During the seven years I had worked for her, this was an extraordinary moment, one I shall never forget.

How he wanted to touch her hand again! And once again, it seemed that her eyes lingered the longest upon his face, this pumpkin who was the pinnacle of female virtue. Cormack’s cock, unbidden, elongated and stiffened. He was glad that his buckskin shirt covered his erection, although suddenly he was acutely aware that his belt was probably too tight.

We were referring to Forever, Judy Blume’s latest book. Beth and I were obsessed with Judy Blume. We had plodded through Blubber, Tales of A Fourth Grade Nothing, Deenie, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret in record-breaking speed, with Margaret being the pinnacle, the literary work we judged all other books against, until Forever. With Margaret, we witnessed our chests blossom from flat boards to mosquito bites, culminating in the extremely delicate and life-changing ritual of menstruation. We celebrated with Margaret and hoped for the same surge of hormones in our own bodies by the book’s end, but much to our frustration, that didn’t happen, no, not until we got to reading Forever. There began the hormone surge. Forever was not the same identifiable literature that had answered most of the questions and concerns I had about the awkward, teenage years. This particular book stumped me. “Didn’t you just love Michael and Katherine together?” she

AUGUST 12 • Everyone suddenly burst out singing. — Siegfried Sassoon The child within us wants to come out and play. The adult in us may resist, but why not do it anyway? Having fun, being playful, and letting go of rigid personas is as necessary to recovery as good food and loving relationships. Having fun is an attitude as well as an activity. We can have a good time with everything we do — well, almost everything. But dancing around the living room, taking a day off work, doing something artistic, taking a child to the zoo — the world is full of things that are enjoyable. It might even be fun to make a list of things that are fun. Being willing to have fun frees the spontaneous, goofy, carefree parts of ourselves. We can show that side to people and practice not caring what they think. While we don’t have to abandon our boundaries, it’s good to take a risk and let go. In the end it’s our spirits that are freed. Who knows? We might even jump off the high pinnacle of the adult world and laugh as we take the fall. Discovering what I have fun at, and doing it, helps me grow in my recovery.

adies and gentlemen, I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing. Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

The Hill People have an interesting relationship with the surrounding states. The people of the valleys view them as “living ancestors,” even though they have formed as a response to the valley civilizations. They are post-state, not pre-state, but the ideology of the state refuses to recognize such a category as “post-state” because the state supposes itself to be the pinnacle of progress.