Feelings and stories of unworthiness and shame are perhaps the most binding element in the trance of fear. When we believe something is wrong with us, we are convinced we are in danger. Our shame fuels ongoing fear, and our fear fuels more shame. The...
Writing is a habit, an addiction, as powerful and overmastering an urge as putting a bottle to your lips or a spike in your arm. Call it the impulse to make something out of nothing, call it an obsessive-compulsive disorder, call it logorrhea. Have y...
An eternal question about children is, how should we educate them? Politicians and educators consider more school days in a year, more science and math, the use of computers and other technology in the classroom, more exams and tests, more certificat...
I think you could fall in love with anyone if you saw the parts of them that no one else gets to see. I don't know, like if you followed them around invisibly for a day and you saw them crying in their bed at night or singing to themselves as they ma...
Fantasy is escapism, but wait... Why is this wrong? What are you escaping from, and where are you escaping to? Is the story opening windows or slamming doors? The British author G.K. Chesterton summarized the role of fantasy very well. He said its pu...
I think it simply comes down to fantasy being the language I speak. While I cannot get into epic sword and sorcery, I see the world as having the potential to be slightly off-kilter. I have run into people who do not quite seem human – though of co...
In order to succeed we need leaders of inspired idealism, leaders to whom are granted great visions, who dream greatly and strive to make their dreams come true; who can kindle the people with the fire from their own burning souls. The leader for the...
My Papa's Waltz: The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy. We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother's countenance Could not unfrown itself. The hand that held...
I'm with him because when I'm with him, I'm free to be me. I'm with him because he's hot. I'm with him because he lets me blather, since I'm prone to blathering, and he lets me rant when I have a bad day. I'm with him because when I rant, he makes me...
You know you’ve come a long way when the thought of quitting scares you. You’ve made some… well, call them 'remarkable achievements', and you’ve managed to draw some attention to yourself. But SUCCESS is really not how far you’ve gone. It�...
The dying bees, the Antarctic melt, the mountains of old tires, the incessant toxic belch of factories that make Batman bobbleheads for Happy Meals. Off-gassing couches! Cancerous tinned tomatoes! Imprisoned killer whales! Our breastmilk is poisoned....
Before yoga, my life was filled with regret about choices I'd made in the past, and fears about choices I'd make in the future. Yoga teaches us how to be present in the present. Once you learn how to live in the now, you realize that the past is a me...
It's hard to say what makes the mind piece things together in a sudden lightning flash. I've come to hold the human spirit in the highest regard. Like the body, it struggles to repair itself. As cells fight off infection and conquer illness, the spir...
We sit to make life meaningful. The significance of our life is not experienced in striving to create some perfect thing. We must simply start with accepting ourselves. Sitting brings us back to actually who and where we are. This can be very painful...
Don’t be afraid to do weird stuff, so long as you do it cheaply and cover everyone’s bets. Be bold. Be stupid, if you have to: so long as you don’t hurt anybody, what’s it matter how dopey your dream is? If I hadn’t made TUSK? If I’d let ...
Painfully, the tips of his fingers grazed over her neck, torturing her soul. She didn't move as his hand stroked the length of her nape, feeling the slight warmth of her aura make him lightly tingle with a frenzied anticipation. Her blood burned for ...
The gift of imagination is by no means an exclusive property of the artist; it is a gift we all share; to some degree or other all of us are endowed with the powers of fantasy, the dullest of dullards among us has the gift of dreams at night - vision...
I’ve learned that the creative life may or may not be the apex of human civilization, but either way it’s not what I thought it was. It doesn’t make you special and sparkly. You don’t have to walk alone. You can work in an office — I’ve w...
If you’re not happy, then something is wrong. A person comes into the world as a happy being, yet over time, the happiness fades away and they find themselves in this bubble of anxiety and misery all the time. And it’s a comfortable place to stay...
Make life about more than just you. Take the world around you and transform it for the sake of others. Do a good deed for your neighbor; smile at strangers; volunteer for a bigger purpose and don’t except anything in return. The first step of redem...
Fairy tales in childhood are stepping stones throughout life, leading the way through trouble and trial. The value of fairy tales lies not in a brief literary escape from reality, but in the gift of hope that goodness truly is more powerful than evil...
