I beg you to see this in the right light, and to combine it with the feeling about what happened through the Mystery of Golgotha, in which his actual sacrifice consisted: namely in leaving the spiritual spheres in order to live with the earth and the...
Often when we hear people speak about meditation, we hear about wisdom, we hear about knowledge. But what, actually, is the effect, what’s the use, of wisdom or knowledge? Understanding. When you understand mind, you’re not at its mercy. When you...
I suppose the best way to tell the story is simply to narrate it, without an effort to carry belief. The thing did not require belief. It was not a feeling of horror in one's bones, or a misty outline, or anything that needed to be given actuality by...
Tell me, what happened to William's little maid? I never saw her again after that dinner. Elsie? -- She's gone. Oh, it's a pity, really. I thought it was a good idea to have someone in the house who is actually sorry he's dead.
It was May 2009, and I didn’t like where the economy was headed. (I wished the Federal Reserve had a GPS or a map or some clue as to where they were driving the economy). Actually, the private sector drives the economy, while the Fed and the govern...
The view is often defended that sciences should be built up on clear and sharply defined basal concepts. In actual fact no science, not even the most exact, begins with such definitions. The true beginning of scientific activity consists rather in de...
Repose, leisure, peace, belong among the elements of happiness. If we have not escaped from harried rush, from mad pursuit, from unrest, from the necessity of care, we are not happy. And what of contemplation? Its very premise is freedom from the fet...
When my mother passed away several years ago—well, wait a minute. Actually, she didn’t ‘pass away.’ She died. Something about that verb, ‘to pass away’ always sounds to me as if someone just drifted through the wallpaper. No, my mother di...
There is the solitude of suffering, when you go through darkness that is lonely, intense, and terrible. Words become powerless to express your pain; what others hear from your words is so distant and different from what you are actually suffering.
Blankets on the other hand are incredibly needy as they are always trying to fill a “void”. Are a bit whorish in that the instant you walk away from them in less than a minute they’ll be all over someone else, and the moment you actually need t...
Certain things leave you in your life and certain things stay with you. And that's why we're all interested in movies- those ones that make you feel, you still think about. Because it gave you such an emotional response, it's actually part of your em...
Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details...
Wrinkles was her big gray cat. Sierra named him Wrinkles because when he was a little baby he had a wrinkly face. He slept in Sierra's room, but not always on the bed. Mommy said that was 'cause Wrinkles had an attitude. Most cats had attitudes, actu...
We’re constantly changing facts, rewriting history to make things easier, to make them fit in with our preferred version of events. We do it automatically. We invent memories. Without thinking. If we tell ourselves something happened often enough w...
The self-congratulatory popular account insists that Dr. King called on the nation to fully accept its own creed, and the walls came a-tumbling down. This conventional narrative is soothing, moving, and politically acceptable, and has only the disadv...
He’d never actually been in a room with an insane person. Someone who asked questions they thought they already knew the answers to, or someone who asked, just to hear an answer they could disagree with. Sometimes, it was neither and they only want...
My mom was always keen I stayed in school and got good grades, and she was always keen for me to do medicine. I used to go to drama classes when I was younger, and she would always take me. But when I got to an age when I decided it was what I wanted...
One of the main secrets to staying young is staying healthy. I've sometimes had to suppress a smile when some young lady, who has obviously not taken care of herself through diet or exercise, says admiringly, 'Ooh, I hope I look as good as you do whe...
I'm trying to take more nothing time - and that means sacrificing doing. It's partly to do with age, partly to do with the fact that writing takes up a lot of space in your head. My ideal is to go back to when I was a child. My life is quieter than i...
Australians love to pump you up when you're nobody. Then, when you start to put your head above water and say, 'Well, actually, I am a bit different, I am an individual and I do have a particular talent', or whatever, they want to go after you. But t...
I learned to basically pull my own weight, just do my own thing. I spent a lot of time alone and I loved it. It was actually really great because to the present day I love spending time alone. I go bicycling alone, go climbing alone and I just love b...
