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Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor. ↗
It still would be years before I understood the seriousness of my change of view. Much later, I recognized it in "Revolution," the essay of Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski, who describes the moment when a man on the edge of a crowd looks back defiantly at a policeman — and when that policeman senses a sudden refusal to accept his defining gaze — as the imperceptible moment in which rebellion is born. "All books about all revolutions begin with a chapter that describes the decay of tottering authority or the misery and sufferings of the people," Kapuscinski writes. "They should begin with a psychological chapter — one that shows how a harassed, terrified man suddenly breaks his terror, stops being afraid. This unusual process — sometimes accomplished in an instant, like a shock — demands to be illustrated. Man gets rid of fear and feel free. Without that, there would be no revolution. ↗
And what do you know, John's hands flew through the positions of ASL in various l-got-this combinations. "Is he deaf" the guy behind the cash register asked in a stage whisper. As if someone using American Sign Language was some kind of freak. "No. Blind." "Oh." As the man kept staring, Qhuinn wanted to pop him. "You going to help us out here or what?" "Oh ... yeah. Hey, you got a tattoo on your face." Mr. Observant moved slowly, like the bar codes on those bags were creating some kind of wind resistance under his laser reader. "Did you know that?" Really. "I wouldn't know." ''Are you blind, too?" No filter on this guy. None. "Yeah, I am." "Oh, so that's why your eyes are all weird." "Yeah. That's right." Qhuinn took out a twenty and didn't wait for change-murder was just a liiiiiittle too tempting. Nodding to John, who was also measuring the dear boy for a shroud, Qhuinn went to walk off. "What about your change ?" the man called out. "I'm deaf, too. I can't hear you." The guy yelled more loudly, "I'll just keep it then, yeah?" "Sounds good," Qhuinn shouted over his shoulder. Idiot was stage-five stupid. Straight up. ↗
Because loners are born everywhere, we end up living everywhere. We do not, have not, tended to single ourselves out as special, elite, requiring rarefied environments. Too often we have done the opposite; lived where we lived because our jobs were there, or families, or because we'd heard the schools were good there, or that we would love a place with changing seasons. Then, no matter what, we put our noses to the grindstone. We take living there as a fait accompli, a fact. Too often we are miserable somewhere without realizing why. We blame ourselves for not buckling down, settling in, fitting in. The problem is the place, but too often we do not see this, we will not allow ourselves to see this. It's the same old thing: This is a friendly town, so what's your problem? ...To the non-loner, or the self-reproaching loner, the fact of being a loner is not comparable to those other determinants. It is not a matter of life and death, we tell ourselves. It its not a matter of breathing or of execution by stoning. But home is the crucible of living...So how can living not be a matter of life and death? ↗
I'm not the first person to have discovered evidence that consciousness exists beyond the body. Brief, wonderful glimpses of this realm are as old as human history. ↗
As it is not a settled question, you must clear your mind of the fancy with which we all begin as children, that the institutions under which we live, including our legal ways of distributing income and allowing people to own things, are natural, like the weather. They are not. Because they exist everywhere in our little world, we take it for granted that they have always existed and must always exist, and that they are self-acting. That is a dangerous mistake. They are in fact transient makeshifts; and many of them would not be obeyed, even by well-meaning people, if there were not a policeman within call and a prison within reach. They are being changed continually by Parliament, because we are never satisfied with them.... At the elections some candidates get votes by promising to make new laws or to get rid of old ones, and others by promising to keep things just as they are. This is impossible. Things will not stay as they are. Changes that nobody ever believed possible take place in a few generations. Children nowadays think that spending nine years in school, oldage and widows’ pensions, votes for women, and short-skirted ladies in Parliament or pleading in barristers’ wigs in the courts are part of the order of Nature, and always were and ever shall be; but their great-grandmothers would have set down anyone who told them that such things were coming as mad, and anyone who wanted them to come as wicked. ↗
Are you bothered because he says he could see us together? Or is there something else?” Sam's voice had grown quieter with that last question. Devin looked up from the board to see something he'd never thought he'd see from Sam. An expression that, on anyone else, would've been more than curious. It was open, vulnerable. A naked longing that disappeared as soon as Devin was sure he knew what it was, to be replaced by Sam pressing his lips together and looking down at the board again. Wow. Okay. That made this conversation a hell of a lot more interesting. Maybe Sam had spent so much time analyzing Devin because he wanted to know if he had a chance. Devin wasn't sure how he felt about that. “I'm not in love with the idea that you guys have talked about me,” Devin said. “It's strange.” “I'm sorry our conversation made you feel that way,” Sam said. “I honestly wouldn't have said anything if you didn't want to know.” “I know, I asked for it,” Devin responded. “About...us.” Dev looked up in time to see Sam's expression change before the mask slid back into place. “You don't think it's weird?” Sam's lips trembled as he fought down a smile. “I think,” he began, reaching across the table, “life is full of possibilities.” He touched the back of Devin's hand with the tips of his fingers, gently stroking the skin. “If this isn't one you want to take advantage of, then you shouldn't feel pressured to do so.” It wasn't Devin's imagination that the temperature in the room had risen. It was one thing when Sam was getting into his head on a purely academic level. It was another thing when Sam looked at him from beneath thick lashes as if he could unravel Devin from the inside out if given half the chance. And he so wanted that chance. Holy hell. The little nerd was trying to seduce him. ↗
Government should not be involved in marriage at all, I believe. There’s no reason for it. I don’t get the value of my marriage government, I get it from God. I want the government out of my life. If you want to find a church that marries a gay couple, that’s totally fine. My church does not do that and it will fundamentally change what i believe is the eternal family, the basic building block. And I have a right to believe that, and I have a right to go to a church that believes that and we have a right to practice. As long as I’m not trying to force you to do anything. ↗
In the past, my brain could only compute perfection or failure—nothing in between. So words like competent, acceptable, satisfactory, and good enough fell into the failure category. Even above average meant failure if I received an 88 out of 100 percent on an exam, I felt that I failed. The fact is most things in life are not absolutes and have components of both good and bad. I used to think in absolute terms a lot: all, every, or never. I would all of the food (that is, binge), and then I would restrict every meal and to never eat again. This type of thinking extended outside of the food arena as well: I had to get all of the answers right on a test; I had to be in every extracurricular activity […] The ‘if it’s not perfect, I quit’ approach to life is a treacherous way to live. […] I hadn’t established a baseline of competence: What gets the job done? What is good enough? Finding good enough takes trial and error. For those of us who are perfectionists, the error part of trial and error can stop us dead in our tracks. We would rather keep chasing perfection than risk possibly making a mistake. I was able to change my behavior only when the pain of perfectionism became greater than the pain of making an error. […] Today good enough means that I’m okay just the way I am. I play my position in the world. I catch the ball when it is thrown my way. I don’t always have to make the crowd go wild or get a standing ovation. It’s good enough to just catch the ball or even to do my best to catch it. Good enough means that I finally enjoy playing the game. ↗
