The ending shouldn't determine the meaning of anything, a story or a life. Logically, I don't think it can--didn't Heidegger say something to that effect? That the meaning of all our moments cannot be contingent upon an end-point over which we have n...
Shit," he said. "I don't know why you're feeling sorry for yourself because you ain't had to fight a war. You're lucky. Shit, all you had was that damn Desert Storm. Should have called it Dessert Storm because it just made the fat cats get fatter. It...
I know the M-word makes you nervous, but yeah. I'm talking about the big, permanent friendship. A little different from what Joe and Charles had, though. See, I want to be the kind of best friends who make love every night, who share all their darkes...
Why I Wake Early Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who made the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety – best preacher t...
In the past few years, genetics have confirmed that the hunter-gatherers were not overwhelmed by the new wave of sedentary farmers, and that the first agricultural revolution spread well in advance of its first users, by contact and trade in ideas. N...
Is there a definition of a truly good person? .... Many say that "Nice guys finish last", that "kindness is weakness", and so on. To those of you who are told "Your too nice" or you tell yourself that. That is something to hold on to! So many people ...
That old black coat he always wore to preach in was the one he put over her shoulders one evening when they were walking along the road together and he was throwing rocks at the fence posts the way a boy would do, still shy of her. But on a Sunday mo...
Cecil fingered the Agnus Dei round her neck. "Why shouldn't they have lucky things?" she said. "Well, it's all very complicated," Dominic said. "And perhaps I'm not the one to explain it." "Why not?" Cecil asked, surprised. "Because I don't know if I...
Genuine self esteem – please understand this – genuine self esteem is not competitive or comparative. Genuine self esteem isn’t expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by trying to make yourself superior to everyone else, o...
Most problems of teaching are not problems of growth but helping cultivate growth. As far as I know, and this is only from personal experience in teaching, I think about ninety percent of the problem in teaching, or maybe ninety-eight percent, is jus...
My gift to you, Yukiko-chan.' He nodded. 'Use it to cut away your fear, and leave nothing in its wake. Cherish it. And cherish this truth I speak to you now, if no other before or after: The greatest tempest Shima has even known waits in the wings fo...
I cried and cried. But then I had to stop. One thing about me was that when I was having a serious wish session, I tried never to wish impossible wishes. I might have wished for sixteen crayons instead of eight, but even when I was little, I never wi...
Freedom is a place, an area. It's a higher place. There are some other people that are here, and things that are here which are unseen. But you first have to set yourself free and believe in what you cannot see, believe that there is something more o...
The dominant myth of the day seemed to be that anybody could do anything, even go to the moon. You could do whatever you wanted -in the ads and in the articles, ignore your limitations, defy them. If you were an indecisive person, you could become a ...
Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five balls in the air. You name them --work, family, health, friends and spirit and you're keeping all of these in the air. You will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it ...
My greatest urge in life is to do nothing. It's not even an absence of motivation, a lack, for I do have a strong urge: to do nothing. To down tools, to stop. Except I know that if I do that I will fall into despair, and I know that it is worth doing...
Actively, we are motivated by the never-ending desires of the self. We are compelled to pursue whatever the self imagines will satisfy its desires. We are convinced that satisfaction of desire is the source of true happiness. Yet the very nature of d...
Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has personally affronted, your host will ask why you're not drinking. 'Oh, I just don't feel like it this morning.' 'Why not?' 'I guess I'm not in the mo...
In the Ottoman times, there were itinerant storytellers called "meddah. " They would go to coffee houses, where they would tell a story in front of an audience, often improvising. With each new person in the story, the meddah would change his voice, ...
Any decision can be easier if you think carefully about your goals; the dimensions of yourself that are most important to you; your needs and wants; the specific costs and benefits associated with your choices; the commensurability of those choices; ...
If I could have made the change sooner I daresay I should never have given a thought to the literary delights of Paris or London; for life in the country is the only state which has always completely satisfied me, and I had never been allowed to grat...
