Or, God, maybe this was just life. For everyone on the planet. Maybe the Survivor's Club wasn't something you "earned," but simply what you were born into when you came out of your mother's womb. Your heartbeat put you on the roster and then the rest...
We could stay. You could sleep it off and we can still go to Disney with everyone tomorrow. Don’t you want to go to Fantasyland?” I batted my eyelashes. Jackson ran his thumb and forefinger over his lip, catching his grin and a speck of dried blo...
As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under ...
Every last minute of my life has been preordained and I'm sick and tired of it. How this feels is I'm just another task in God's daily planner: the Italian Renaissance penciled in for right after the Dark Ages. ... The Information Age is scheduled im...
It seems that soccer tournaments create those relationships: people gathered together in pubs and living rooms, a whole country suddenly caring about the same event. A World Cup is the sort of common project that otherwise barely exists in modern soc...
The asylum, and later the national health service, warehoused thousands of patients made mad by the intrusions of a sexual predator. But these institutions had been dominated by the discredited Freudian fantasy that sexual abuse doesn’t happen - th...
Probably no single event highlights the strength of Campbell’s argument (on peak oil) better than the rapid development of the Alberta tar sands. Bitumen, the world’s ugliest and most expensive hydrocarbon, can never be a reasonable substitute fo...
When dreaded outcomes are actually imminent we don't worry about themwe take action. Seeing lava from the local volcano make its way down the street toward our house does not cause worry it causes running. Also we don't usually choose imminent events...
I'm never going to complain about receiving free early copies of books, because clearly there's nothing to complain about, but it does introduce a rogue element into one's otherwise carefully plotted reading schedule. ... Being a reader is sort of li...
What makes the prospect of death distinctive in the modern age is the background of permanent technological and sociological revolution against which it is set, and which serves to strip us of any possible faith in the permanence of our labours. Our ...
Consider another abstinence product: a gold rose pin handed out in schools or at Christian youth events. The pin is attached to a small card that reads, "You are like a beautiful rose. Each time you engage is pre-marital sex a previous petal is strip...
After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ough...
A person who is walking around with the belief I am safe in my body is going to approach the world from a very different place than someone who doesn't believe that. That person will be more confident in approaching others, as Sonia was in sharing he...
The Los Angeles parade would begin in Griffith Park, where a large crowd would assemble and the speeches would be given. Every politician of consequence would be there. There was no way they would miss a chance to publicly praise the troops and honor...
I looked at Victor, my heart swelling from the emotion. “When I die, please do the same ceremony for me,” I whispered, choking up. “This is the most captivating and emotional event I have ever been part of.” “I’m afraid you’ll have to a...
But what is ? What is ? The words and do not denote any really existing thing and therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I think that I cannot know...
If the freedom to do as we please is extended to everyone, we lose our freedom. Inevitably, our desire will clash with the desires of others. In the event of such conflict, the strongest individual could impose his or her wishes on those weaker than ...
Our life is composed of events and states of mind. How ewe appraise our life from our deathbed will be predicated not only on what came to us in life but how we lived with it. It will not be simply illness or health, riches or poverty, good luck or b...
This is an extremely difficult matter for modern readers of the gospels to grasp, but Luke never meant for his story about Jesus's birth at Bethlehem to be understood as historical fact. Luke would have had no idea what we in the modern world even me...
6.4311 Der Tod ist kein Ereignis des Lebens. Den Tod erlebt man nicht. Wenn man unter Ewigkeit nicht unendliche Zeitdauer, sondern Unzeitlichkeit versteht, dann lebt der ewig, der in der Gegenwart lebt. Unser Leben ist ebenso endlos, wie unser Gesich...
I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the "isness" of man's present...
