Similar (of course, far from identical) irritations in similar conditions call out similar reflexes; the more powerful the irritation, the sooner it overcomes personal peculiarities. To a tickle, people react differently, but to a red-hot iron, alike...
In my parents' day and age, it used to be the person who fell short. Now it's the discipline. Reading the classics is too difficult, therefore it's the classics that are to blame. Today the student asserts his incapacity as a privilege. I can't learn...
Before the next minute had passed, they had all fallen to the ground. Just like that. As though someone had reached inside and turned off a switch. "What happened?" Matt asked, gasping. I went from one person to the next, trying to wake them up, but ...
I tried to shut myself down completely, put up my best screensaver personality to coast through the day. I didn't want to see her. I was desperate to see her. I wanted to hold it together. I wanted to melt down right at her feet and scream, Look what...
Richard exhaled. It was like somebody sprinkling pepper on his wound: Thousands of Biafrans were dead, and this man wanted to know if there was anything new about one dead white man. Richard would write about this, the rule of Western journalism: One...
The feeling of righteousness is the core mood alteration among religious addicts. Religious addiction is a massive problem in our society. It may be the most pernicious of all addictions because it’s so hard for a person to break his delusion and d...
I had a dream about you. I was a mannequin with a record player for a head, and you were an aspiring DJ. You lusted after me and I was appreciative, because you were the first person who wanted me for what’s going on in my head, and not because I h...
The sanction of force stands behind the medley of personal orders and regulations of Martial Law. The sanction of the people's consent stands behind the hierarchy of laws. In one situation, the population is regimented into acquiescence. In the other...
In fact, the anti-Muslim stance of much of Hindu nationalism can be construed as partly a displaced hostility against the colonial power which could not be expressed directly because of the new legitimacy created within Hinduism for this power. Such ...
My fear was not the fear of God but, as in the case of the whole Turkish secular bourgeoisie, fear of the anger of those who believe in God too zealously(...) I experienced the guilt complex as something personal, originated less from the fear of dis...
I used to size people up to see whether they were a good advert for meditation. Then at some point it clicked that there wasn't a type of person they were going to become. They were each just more and more themselves. Jim was very Jim, Isaac was uniq...
It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.
It must be wonderful to marry the person whom we really love.” Lany said dazed. Antony turned his gaze from the moon and faced the girl's face. “You have ever had that feeling.” He said looking into her dark eyes. She shrugged as she was embarr...
Geez, you guys. I know I'm popular and all, but seriously, you're a bit too co-dependent for me. I'm going to need you to step away from my personal bubble." A wispy vine-woman curled ivy tendrils around his arm, and he sliced through them with his d...
Though there are exceptions, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism tend to stress desirable states of consciousness, escaping the fretful, self-aware state of mind that so often makes everyday living a burden. For mystics from the Abrahamic faiths, however,...
Throughout the world what remains of the vast public spaces are now only the stuff of legends: Robin Hood’s forest, the Great Plains of the Amerindians, the steppes of the nomadic tribes, and so forth… Rousseau said that the first person who want...
Past and history are not the same. Past is what happened. It consists of events that affected the patient's self, some of which he can remember, but the most he is having trouble remembering. History is transforming the past to a story that the perso...
Love is just like the flower; it has hidden depths that we rarely ever explore. Beneath the surface lies a network of roots. You can admire the flower for what it is, or you can dig deeper. The more you dig, the more you will find. The real reasons w...
Chewing on his lip, he tried to make sense of this. There was something terribly wrong with the picture of her playing this CD. The music was hard for him to take, alright. But if there was one person in this world, that he would have sworn, would ha...
People do not belong to others, either. How can the huincas buy and sell people if they do not own them. Sometimes the boy went two or three days without speaking a word, surly, and not eating, and when asked what was the matter, the answer was alway...
Eating, drinking, dying - three primary manifestations of the universal and impersonal life. Animals live that impersonal and universal life without knowing its nature. Ordinary people know its nature but don't live it and, if they think seriously ab...
