Two researchers in the psychology department of the University of California at San Diego recently decided to test whether we really hate spoilers, or just like to say we do. What they found surprised them: The majority of people apparently like having a story spoiled for them. In fact, we may enjoy spoiled stories even more than the unspoiled versions.
Let The Day Goby Grace Paleywho needs itI had another day in mindsomething like this onesunny green the earthjust right having sufferedthe assault of what is calledtorrential rain the pepperthe basil sitting uprightin their little boxes waitingI suppose for me also thecosmos the zinnias nearlyblooming a year too lateforget it let the day gothe sweet green day let ittake care of itself
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself,and all the whilea great wind is bearing me across the sky.Ojibawa saying
19.
Once at Cold Mountain [or Mount Aire], troubles cease -
No more tangled, hung up mind.
I idly scribble poems on the rock cliff,
Taking whatever comes, like a drifting boat.
"We write for the same reason we read or look at paintings...for the total immersion of the experience, the narrowing and intensification of focus to the right here, right now, the deep joy of bringing the entire soul to bear upon a single act of concentration."
I run all my friends and relatives and enemies one by one in this, without entertaining any angers or gratitudes or anything, and I say, like, "Equally empty, equally to be loved, equally a coming Buddha."
"...the search for security and certainty is actually an attachment to the known. And what’s the known? The known is our past. The known is nothing other than the prison of past conditioning. There’s no evolution in that.When you experience uncertainty, you are on the right path – so don’t give it up. You don’t need to have a complete and rigid idea of what you’ll be doing next week or next year, because if you have a very clear idea of what’s going to happen and you get rigidly attached to it, then you shut out the whole range of possibilities.”
I looked back and like Lot's wife that did it... Supposing I'd start to slip back for good, these screes might start sliding any time anyway [...] Finally I came to a kind of ledge where I could sit at a level angle instead of having to cling not to slip, and I nudged my whole body inside the ledge just to hold me there tight, so the wind would not dislodge me, and I looked down and around and I had had it.
With absolutely no attempt at hyperbole at all, it is fair to say that this is one of--if not the--biggest achievement of the human race. For, as we speak, an object conceived in the human mind, and built by our tools, and launched from our planet, is sailing out of the further depths of our solar system--and will be the first object made by man to sail out into interstellar space."
And as we watch the field baking in the heat-–as we feel the sun's power to burn as well as to bless--we can feel our own gifts, our own special abilities as they ripen and swell, and know that we, too, have the power to make a difference for growth or for destruction in the world.
It is a time to mark peak moments, moments of warmth and growth [...], (it) is a time to invite fire into our lives-–fire to burn away all that we have outgrown and all that no longer serves us; fire that makes the wild things grow in us, for which our inner selves have longed.
Cait Johnson and Maura D. Shaw from Celebrating the Great Mother
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
“Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn’t what you get for it, but what you become for it.”
Lester Burnham: "Brad, for 14 years I've been a whore for the advertising industry. The only way I could save myself now is if I start firebombing. "I guess the moral of these two quotes is that sometimes it's nice to give your inner hippie options (quotation-wise, that is; don't firebomb things).
He is survived by his four daughters, Susan Nixon, Ramona Ostergren, Bettina Karapetian, and Alexandra Bradbury, and eight grandchildren. His wife, Marguerite, predeceased him in 2003, after fifty-seven years of marriage.
Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.
Passage
In all the woods that day I was
the only living thing
fretful, exhausted, or unsure.
Giant fir and spruce and cedar trees
that had stood their ground
three hundred years
stretched in sunlight calmly
unimpressed by whatever
it was that held me
hunched and tense above the stream,
biting my nails, calculating all
my impossibilities.
Nor did the water pause
to reflect or enter into
my considerations.
It found its way
over and around a crowd
of rocks in easy flourishes,
in laughing evasions and
shifts in direction.
Nothing could slow it down for long.
It even made a little song
out of all the things
that got in its way,
a music against the hard edges
of whatever might interrupt its going.
"As a purveyor of beautiful bath salts, I have to think, 'Is this something else for me to worry about?'"
"Zombies are not scrupulous in their use of quotation marks, Karen."And those are words to live by.
