Repetition and familiarity work. What is repeated becomes familiar, and this becomes a part of us. Our own culture understands this, but alas, not always the church. Far too many equate ritual with spiritual dryness. True, ritual and liturgy can be d...
If there is no way to compel those who find a majority decision distasteful to go along with it, then the last thing one would want to do is to hold a vote: a public contest which someone will be seen to lose. Voting would be the most likely means to...
We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. One of things the screen hides most effectively is the body, our own body, by which I mean, the ins and outs of it, its interiors. Like a veil thrown over the skin to secure its modesty, the sc...
Yes?’ he asked, looking at me over the sheet. ‘I’m a writer temporarily down on my inspirations.’ ‘Oh, a writer, eh?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘No, I’m not.’ ‘What do you write?’ ‘Short stories mostly. And I’m halfway ...
If “piracy means using the creative property of others without their permission- if “if value, then right” is true- then the history of the content industry is a history of piracy. Every important sector of “big media” today- film, records,...
If you want to expel religion from our European civilization, you can only do it by means of another system of doctrines; and such a system would from the outset take over all the psychological characteristics of religion—the same sanctity, rigidit...
The Poison Maiden has conceived by him, and is plumb ready to enter the divine category of mother, only one last fiend clubs her to death. The final clinch of male romanticism is that each man kills the thing he loves; whether she be Catharine in A F...
She opened her sketchbook, carefully tore out several pages and handed them to Nasser--three detailed color sketches of three flowers. Leafing through the pages, he translated the message. A petunia: Your presence soothes me. A peppermint flower: war...
As the crow flies. That’s how she liked to walk. So what if she had nowhere to go? So what if no one on earth knew or probably cared where she was or when she’d get home? That wasn’t the point. It didn’t mean she had to take the long way. She...
But I found signs of their trespass: a burned patch planted with a fistful of grain, a tree felled or stripped of fruit, a deer strung up in a snare. I never saw a poacher. They were too cunning, and for cause: the foresters would take a man's hands ...
There is no single thing... that is so cut and dried that one cannot attend to its secret whisper which says 'I am more than just my appearance'. If each object quivers with readiness to imply something other than itself, if each perception is a word...
So the peasants are used as targets in war?” I doubted. “Does the Overhead feel that is necessary to kill off one of their own? Peasants are being placed as diversions on the front line like they mean nothing—” “Would you rather save the st...
Marriage and family life give us constant opportunities to deny ourselves for the sake of others. And yet self-denial is not a mask for self-contempt, but the necessary means for achieving self-mastery; for self-mastery makes possible our self-giving...
I just want you to know that where ever life takes you, I'll always be happy for you as long as its something that makes you happy because that's all that really makes me happy. Why? I'm just listening to my heart and all it's telling me is to unders...
And you're Cameron Wolfe. That' gotta start meaning somethin' boy. That's gotta start churnin' inside us, making us wanna be someone for those names, and not just another couple of guys who amounted to nothin' but what people said we would. No way. W...
The problem for a lot of people is that they don't really know what they want. They have vague desire: to 'do something creative' or to earn more money or 'to be free', but they can't really pin down what it is precisely that they want. So they drift...
There is a word I have always avoided in my writing, my life, my thoughts. That word is love. What does it mean? How do you deal with it? If you find it and lose it, how do you get over it? Love is something you feel and when you feel it you can’t ...
You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't e...
Everyone needs to calm down! Okay, you got a weird cookie. So what? I don’t mean to swat your ego here, buddy, but this smacks a little narcissistic for me. God is not trying to communicate to you through a cookie. It doesn’t work that way. God�...
The Bible's "it's better to give than receive" was not the raving of a lunatic. It goes back to a recurring theme that I've found in almost all my experiments: behaviour shapes your thoughts. My brain sees me giving a gift to Julie. My brain conclude...
. . .the most important philosophical question we can each ask ourselves is, ‘Do I or do I not wish to commit suicide?’ If we say, ‘No I do not,’ as most of us would, it is because we have reasons for living, or at the very least real hope th...
