Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Ben Won!!

Thanks for your votes!

http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/916495

Local dad named 2010 Best Dad on Wheels

By Andie Hannon, Staff Writer

AUBURN — The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation announced Monday that a local 32-year-old father was named 2010 Best Dad on Wheels.

Ben Hayes said he was humbled Monday morning when he received the call from the foundation telling him that his story received more votes than any other. Paralyzed in an accident in late 2007, the Auburn man credits his large support team, which includes his wife, family, friends and co-workers, with helping reach goals many in his position would have given up on.

"I worked hard to get to this point," Hayes said Monday night. "I'm humbled that people recognize me for not being willing to give up and wanting to find ways to connect with my family and connect with (daughter) Isabel."

The nonprofit organization named after the late Superman actor sponsors the contest each year to honor those living with paralysis who demonstrate dedication, love, encouragement and goodwill.

Dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy, the Reeve Foundation invited the public to vote on its top 10 entries. Nominated by his college-sweetheart-turned-wife, Erin, Hayes received more than 8,000 votes to nab the grand prize, which includes bragging rights for the next year and a $500 gift package from Vineyard Vines Clothing.

"The ability to keep everything in perspective is the key," Hayes said in statement issued by the foundation. "Keep pushing and never let it stop you."

According to the foundation, Hayes embodies the spirit and courage of the contest because he doesn't allow the spinal cord injury to stop him from being an active father in the life of his daughter, Isabel, who was only 4 months old at the time of his accident.

"Ben and our other terrific nominees show that while paralysis limits the body, it doesn't limit the heart and mind's capacity to parent," the foundation said in a statement.

Hayes doesn't allow his wheelchair to stop him from doing all the things with his family that other husbands and dads do. He eats with his daughter, transports her around and tucks her in each night with bedtime stories. One thing that stands out is that he teaches his daughter that being in a wheelchair doesn't stop him from loving and guiding her as she grows.

"I try to tell people to be optimistic and try to keep things in perspective in terms of what they're trying to accomplish," Hayes said.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

VOTE FOR BEN HAYES!!!

Benjamin with his daughter

Benjamin Hayes

My husband, Ben, suffered a C4/C5 spinal cord injury on December 21st, 2007. Our daughter, Isabel, was 4 1/2 months old at the time. Ben has developed a loving relationship with Isabel.

He does everything in his power to connect with her and make her realize that even though daddy cannot move, he still loves her and can play with her every day. He uses what he has gained to "hug" her. He had her in front of him while he worked out and let her crawl on him like he was her jungle gym. They "swing" in his lift and once Ben could move his arm, she would hold his hand even though he couldn't hold hers. They eat together (see photo) and at night he tells her stories.

He does everything he can with her and teaches her every single day that daddy is no different than anyone else. He just needs a chair. The older she gets, the more questions she asks. Ben calmly answers them all in a way that she can understand. She knows about daddy's injury and she knows, just as she said, that one day daddy will get up and walk.

http://www.christopherreeve.org/site/c.ddJFKRNoFiG/b.6234103/k.2BE/Vote_for_the_Best_Dad_on_Wheels.htm?msource=email&auid=6976201

Vote for the Best Dad on Wheels - Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation

www.christopherreeve.org

YOU decide who the 2010 Best Dad on Wheels will be! Read each entry then vote for the your favorite one! The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research, and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

final touches

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Blue Highways; A Journey Into America by William Least Heat Moon

With age comes wisdom, but, for some, age comes alone. Oscar Wilde Never say anything that doesn't improve the silence. Richard Yates “And still: some who cry the name of Christ live more remote from love Than some who cry to a void they cannot name.” — Christian Wiman “Faith is nothing more—but how much this is—than a motion of the soul toward God. It is not belief. Belief has objects—Christ was resurrected, God created the earth—faith does not. Even the motion of faith is mysterious and inexplicable: I say the soul moves “toward” God, but that is only the limitation of language. It may be God who moves, the soul that opens for him. Faith is faith in the soul.” ― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer “My God my bright abyss into which all my longing will not go once more I come to the edge of all I know and believing nothing believe in this.” ― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer “If quantum entanglement is true, if related particles react in similar or opposite ways even when separated by tremendous distances, then it is obvious that the whole world is alive and communicating in ways we do not fully understand.” ― Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer

"Breathe. Things are never as good or as bad as they seem."

~Andrew Ross Sorkin

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

"It's not about the technology being and exponential threat. It's about technology bringing out the worst in humanity that is the existential threat."

~Tristan Harris

"We have met the enemy. And he is us."

~Pogo

"In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly."

Mark Suster

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you can see all sorts of things you cannot see from the center."

--Kurt Vonnegut

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."

--Kurt Vonnegut

" I felt for the first time at rest. Sitting full in the moment, I practiced on the god-awful difficulty of just paying attention... any traveler who misses the journey misses about all he's going to get... a man becomes his attentions. His observations and curiosity, they make and remake him."

"It was cold and drizzling again. 'Weather to give a man the weary dismals,' Watt grumbled. 'Where you headed from here?'... I thought for a moment,'I don't know.'... 'Cain't get lost then.' Watt pronounced with a grin."
Blue Highways

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle"

~Albert Einstein

"Attention is the intentional channeling of awareness."

"I don't want laughs. I want claps."-- Ryan Foss (age 5)

"Pay close attention to those individuals who don't clap when you win."

"In your choices lies your talent." -- Stella Adner

"Every religion is true one way or another. It is true when understood metaphorically. But when it gets stuck in it's own metaphors, interpreting them as facts, then you are in trouble"

--Joseph Campbell

"The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less." ~Socrates

"As a man is, so he sees." -- William Blake

"You have been oriented that you must pay a price in order to get somewhere, and in the process, you've come to believe that getting there must be really important, therefore, it must be your purpose. And we say, but if you're not getting to joy, then you've gotten nowhere. Joy is really where you're going."

--- Abraham

"All of humanities problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

---Pensees Blaise Pascal

"You can't boil two goat's heads in the same pot."

--Elnur Jafarli

"I don't lie. I just remember big."

---John Steinbeck

"All choices are made either out of fear or out of love. Live your life fearlessly."

---Moorjani

“the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people”

"All life is a chance. So take it! The person who goes furthest is the one who is willing to do and dare."

Only that day dawns to which we are awake.
- Henry David Thoreau-

"Hard tellin, not knowin..."

--Michael Skoczenski

"When you know better, you do better.

--unknown

"If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to paying attention than to any other talent." -Isaac Newton

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke -

"All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher."
~ Lucretius

I cannot tell how the truth may be,
I tell the tale as told to me.
- A Welsh Story Teller

"Who is this? I came out alone on my way to my tryst. But who is this that follows me in the dark? I move aside to avoid his presence but I escape him not. He makes the dust rise from the earth with his swagger. He adds his loud voice to every word I utter. He is my own small self, my lord, he knows no shame: but I am ashamed to come to your door in his presence."

---Tagore

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and
never simple.
- Oscar Wilde

"At least you're a self aware asshole..."-- Katie Foss (age 19)
-
Human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
- T. S. Eliot -

Eat, Pray, Love

"People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather, if you are fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You must fight for it, insist upon it and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly."

"redream your dream

do what you fear
hear what you feel
go where you care
live to be real
forget yourself
forgo your scheme
redeem the truth
redream your dream"

Patrick Anderson, Saint Simons Island

"Change and growth take place when a person risks himself and dares to become involved with experimenting with his own life" Herbert Otto

Don't just do something... sit there!

If at first an idea does not sound absurd, then there is no hope for it."--Albert Einstein

You can't stop the river, but you can learn to float.

"Simplify, simplify, simplify..." Henry David Thoreau

"Too many people spend money they don't have, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like." Will Rogers

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly." Bertrand Russell

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin

"Artists of Life"- make their own terms with society; accept the responsibility to create the life they will lead. Calvin Wilson

“The winner is one who knows when to drop out in order to get in touch.” Marshall McLuhan

"Why do I need to learn about maps? Every road goes somewhere..."--Katie Foss (age 17)

"Why do I need to learn about money... never mind."-- Katie Foss (age 17; the defiant years)

If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it. ~Toni Morrison

I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes. ~Sara Teasdale

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted. ~John Lennon

You do not have the right to quit trying. (The universe wobbles when you do.) You have the right to quit Toxic People. (They're contagious.) ~Dr. SunWolf

Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway. ~Elbert Hubbard

To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. ~Hippocrates

"We're the quiet family."--Connie Foss

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to." ~J.R.R. Tolkien,The Lord of the Rings

"All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given to you."~ Gandalf

Never saw off the branch you are on, unless you are being hanged from it. ~Stanislaw Lec

God is good, but never dance in a small boat. ~Irish Saying

"Not all those who wander are lost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”
~ John Lennon

"All the great Truths begin as blasphemies."
~ George Bernard Shaw

"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
― Max Planck

"Lot of water under the bridge, lot of other stuff too
Don’t get up gentlemen, I’m only passing through.

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I’m expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed"

-Bob Dylan; Things have Changed

“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

“I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

from Erin

"Want to know how to serve the world? Forget service for its own sake and simply live in joy. For a joyful soul effortlessly showers itself on a thirsty world."

Unknown

"Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied."

Taoist ethic

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.” - Alan Watts

"I don't lie. I just remember big."

John Steinbeck

"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list."

Susan Sontag

Quote of the Day:
"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate."

- Carl Jung

PANTHEISM - by Paul Harrison
is the belief that the universe is divine and nature is sacred.
It fuses religion and science, and concern for humans with concern for nature.
It provides the the most solid basis for environmental ethics.
It is a religion that requires no faith other than common sense,
no revelation other than open eyes and a mind open to evidence,
no guru other than your own self

“When I face the desolate impossibility of writing five hundred pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day's work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.”
― John Steinbeck

"it is not "if" we will lose the things we love, it is "when." With some, the loss comes in a major catastrophic event. For most, love is surrendered one piece at a time... first childhood, a promising romance, the passing of a loved one, and finally a child who leaves home. but as we lose, can we not gain a deep knowledge that in the presence of grace, love is eternal."

We are constantly invited to be who we are.
-- Henry David Thoreau

"If you are quiet enough, you will hear the flow of the Universe. You will feel its rhythm. Go with this flow, happiness lies ahead."
~ Buddha

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
― Thornton Wilder

"I don't know how my story will end, but nowhere in my text will it ever read... I gave up." - Lauren Hill

"Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along listening to all the things you cannot hear, and not bothering."
~ A. A. Milne

Nature is saturated with deity.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Work is the curse of the drinking class"
Oscar Wilde

"What is to give light must endure burning."
Viktor Frankel

"Remember the story of the little creature at the beginning of Illusions? He let go of clinging to the bottom of the stream, was bashed around a bit, but then was in the flow of the current. As he floated above the other little creatures downstream, who had warned him not to let go, they looked up and said, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, comes to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare to let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

Richard Bach

"This is the time for us to not try to cling to the old, or to swim upstream, but rather to surf the waves."

Winter Robinson

"The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water."

And I say, "See who is in there with you and celebrate. . ."

"We are the ones we have been waiting for."

Hopi Elder

"Except for the point, the stillpoint,
There would be no dance,
And there is only the dance."

~ T.S. Eliot

Wislawa Symborska says: “The joy of writing./ A chance to make things stay./ A revenge of a mortal hand.”

Some of your hurts you have cured, And the sharpest you still have survived, But what torments of grief you endured From the evil which never arrived.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Take your walk-about before you end up walker bound.."
-Steve Shea

"You have a right to experiment with your life. You will make mistakes. And they are right too. No, I think there was too rigid a pattern. You came out of an education and are supposed to know your vocation. Your vocation is fixed, and maybe ten years later you find you are not a teacher anymore or you’re not a painter anymore. It may happen. It has happened. I mean Gauguin decided at a certain point he wasn’t a banker anymore; he was a painter. And so he walked away from banking. I think we have a right to change course. But society is the one that keeps demanding that we fit in and not disturb things. They would like you to fit in right away so that things work now."

~Anais Nin

certaintyfrom Cousin Leslie

"…I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe and especially the nature of man, to conclude that everything is the result of brute force. I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws … I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton. Let each man hope & believe what he can."
― Charles Darwin

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you
control it.”
― John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

"Instructions for living a life.

Pay attention.

Be astonished.

Tell about it"

~Mary Oliver

"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks."

-Dorothy Parker

"For my part, I know nothing with any certainty, but expansive vistas cause my puny ego to surrender and go silent." (paraphrased from Vincent Van Gough...)

-gdf

"Try to not be a dick."

-Buddha saying (maybe not in those words)

"When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float. And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be."
― Shunryu Suzuki

“God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.”
― Woody Allen

“God enters by a private door into every individual”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster."
-David Hume

"The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance."
-Benjamin Franklin

"Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature's delight."
-Marcus Aurelius

“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
― Galileo Galilei

"What is faith? Is it to believe that which is evident? No. It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason."

-Voltaire

"Deism is the recognition of a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind, supported by personal observation of laws and designs in nature and the universe, perpetuated and validated by the innate ability of human reason coupled with the rejection of claims made by individuals and organized religions of having received special divine revelation."

"There was never yet an uninteresting life. Such a thing is an impossibility. Inside of the dullest exterior there is a drama, a comedy, and a tragedy."
-Mark Twain

"...all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. We are all one consciousness experiencing itself, subjectively. There is no such thing as death. Life is only a dream, and we are an imagination of ourselves." - Bill Hicks

"The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship,
their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit,
and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us."
-Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

"One regret dear wife, that I am determined not to have on my deathbed is that I did not kiss you enough. I adore you..."

-Glendog (plagiarized from Hafiz :-)

“He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in return.”
-Baruch Spinoza

“Why should we not look on the Universe with piety? Is it not our substance? All our possibilities lie from eternity hidden in its bosom. Since it is the source of all our energies, the home of all our happiness, shall we not cling to it and praise it?”
― John Dewey

"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order."
-Carl Jung

"I think we're part of a greater wisdom that we will ever understand; a higher order, call it what you want. Know what I call it? The Big Electron. It doesn't punish, it doesn't reward, it doesn't judge at all. It just is."
― George Carlin

"The more unintelligent a man is, the less mysterious existence seems to him."
― Arthur Schopenhauer

"The universe is wider than our views of it."
― Henry David Thoreau

"It is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he thinks he knows."

-Epictetus (A.D. 55? - 135?)

“The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” -William James

Travel is a good thing; it stimulates the imagination. Everything else is a snare and a delusion. Our own journey is entirely imaginative. Therein lies its strength.

It leads from life to death. Men, beasts, cities, everything in it is imaginary. It’s a novel , only a made-up story.

The dictionary says so and it’s never wrong. Besides, everyone can go and do likewise. Shut your eyes, that’s all that is necessary.

There you have life seen from the other side.

Louis-Ferdinand

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to the recent economic crises, stock market crash, budget cuts, rising unemployment, unstable world conditions, the cost of insurance, electricity, petroleum and taxes of all kinds, we regret to advise you that the "Light at the End of the Tunnel" has been turned off. We apologize for the inconvenience.

the fool in me...

"Life isn't hard. We just make it that way." Eric Foss (age 20) "I must learn to love the fool in me... the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries... It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of my human aliveness, humility and dignity... but for my fool.
Theodore I. Rubin, MD

“I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.”

-John Steinbeck

"The more I study nature, the more I am amazed at the Creator."
Louis Pasteur

“When you no longer need approval from others like the air you breathe, the possibilities in life are endless.
What an interesting little prison we build from the
invisible bricks of other people's opinions.”
― Jacob Nordby

The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace.
~Eckhart Tolle

“The redwoods, once seen, leave a mark or create a vision that stays with you always. No one has ever successfully painted or photographed a redwood tree. The feeling they produce is not transferable. From them comes silence and awe. It's not only their unbelievable stature, nor the color which seems to shift and vary under your eyes, no, they are not like any trees we know, they are ambassadors from another time.”
― John Steinbeck

Your ego is not your amigo...

“How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, “This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant?” Instead they say, “No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.”

~Carl Sagan

There seems to be no incompatibility between faith and science (say no conflict between evolution and religion): for them, He is fate –She incorporates evolution. It is the most abstract concept, allowing no possible anthropomorphic analogy.
Maimonides

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived." ~Isaac Asimov

"I decided to start anew; to strip away what I had been taught."
Georgia O'Keeffe

"If you want to give the universe the name God, that's fine. The universe exists, we are all equal parts of it, we are made of the same stuff...I respect that."
― George Carlin

"I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt." ― Thomas Edison

Epistemological consequence: randomness is what you don’t know ما غاب عنك,
...nothing else.
Maimonides

“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, To put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die Discover that I had not lived.”- Henry David Thoreau

You intended to come forth into the physical realm of contrast to define what is wanted, to connect with the Energy that creates worlds, and to flow it toward your objects of attention, not because the objects of attention are important — but because the act of flowing is essential to life.
Abraham

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.
Maimonides

"Man moves in a world that is nothing more or less than his consciousness objectified."
Neville

“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.”
Vincent van Gogh

Everything exists for joy. There is not one other reason for life than joy. We've got nothing to prove to anyone, because nobody other than All-That-Is is watching. In other words, we're not trying to get brownie points from some other galaxy. We're not trying to get someplace else; we're not trying to get it done, because there is no ending—we cannot get it done. Everything exists for the purpose of joy in the moment.

--- Abraham

"Some things have to be believed to be seen."

-Ralph Hodgson (1871 - 1962)

"Love is indivisible. If you give any, you must give all."

An old man once said, "There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and all the people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad, and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who don't. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.
-Paul Eider

You're not going to have a lot of people you can talk to about this. There is never a crowd on the leading edge. ~Abraham

"I have been a seeker and still am, but I stopped asking books and the stars. I started listening to the teaching of my soul." - Rumi

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" ~Vincent Van Gogh

"I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me. But it’s hard to stay mad when there’s so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once and it’s too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and not try to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. Don’t worry, you will someday". - Lester Burnham (Last line): American Beauty

Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous. -Voltaire

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. — Ben Hecht

“You ask me the real point of it all. Each of us must take his own path on that… Different paths have their own advantages, their own perils. But for your own, human sake… you should consider: Each civilization has its time. Each science has its limits. And Each of us must die. If you truly understand those limits … then you are ready to grow up, to know what counts.” He was silent for a while. “Yes… just listen to the peace. It’s a gift to be able to do that. Too much time is spent in frenzied rushing. Listen to the breeze… Listen to the laughter of your children and grandchildren. Enjoy the time you have, however it is given to you, and for however long.”
-Magnate Larson in A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge

Humanity needs your work and this is why you must write. It’s really that simple. Without your very best stories, we will have a future which does not inspire. Without your stories, we will have a future that does not make us laugh. Without your stories, we will have a future that does not include you or the worlds to which you have born witness. Without your stories, we lose another piece of humanity and somewhere an individual loses out on a chance for enlightenment.
Write.
-Jaime Grove

“It is not so very hard to judge a story after it is written, but after many years, to start a story still scares me to death. I will go so far as to say that the writer who is not scared is happily unaware of the remote and tantalizing majesty of the medium.” – John Steinbeck

“Black holes are where God divided by zero.” – Steven Wright

The standard of success in life isn't the things. It isn't the money or the stuff — it is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.

--- Ester Hicks

The whole secret of growing on the spiritual path is this ...love. When love becomes so loud and clear that everything dwindles beside it, you are making great strides. ~Karen Parrish Lucas

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."
― Albert Einstein

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.”
― Lao Tzu

Pack light, live long and travel far

"I want only this
I want to live
I want to live a simple life"

"You are not controlling the storm, and you are not lost in it. You are the storm." - Sam Harris

Darlin' do not fear what you don't really know
'cause it won't last - the worries will pass
All your troubles they don't stand a chance
And sometimes it takes more than a lifetime to know
Darlin' do not fear what you don't really know

-B. Dennen

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
― C.G. Jung

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
―H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
―Mark Twain

“A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.”
― Steve Martin

“Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
― Dr. Seuss

"Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves." -Albert Einstein

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“The difference between genius and stupidity is; genius has its limits.”
― Albert Einstein

“God is silent. Now if only man would shut up.”
― Woody Allen

“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
― Confucius

“The first duty of a man is to think for himself”
―Jose Marti

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”
― Helen Keller

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”
― C.S. Lewis

“As government expands, liberty contracts.”
― Ronald Reagan

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes. working jobs we hate, so we can buy shit we don't need.”
―Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“The things you used to own, now they own you.”
―Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

“Life is about being nice to people and believing in yourself..”
― Gary Grav

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”
— Henry David Thoreau

“You shall not discover the truth by being blinded to faith.”
―Malinda Lo

“Just that dwelling and planning is bullshit,” he says. “You dwell on the past, you can’t move forward. Spend too much time planning for the future and you just push yourself backwards, or you stay stagnant in the same place all your life.” His eyes lock on mine. “Live in the moment,” he says as if making a serious point, “where everything is just right, take your time and limit your bad memories and you’ll get wherever it is you’re going a lot faster and with less bumps in the road along the way.”
―J. A. Redmerski

"I love humanity. It's people I can't stand." -Linus (from Peanuts)

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”
― Albert Einstein

Thoughts:

"I tend to agree. I agree by accepting that something else is in charge, ( your) life becomes an easier form of reality. And by succumbing to that realization, a sense of freedom emerges and the struggle for self-actualization ends." (if you flip on your back and float, then what is the flow? Deterministic or Free... or both?)

Free will can be interpreted as the struggle to self-actualize—to determine who you are as an individual and make the conscious decisions to govern your own life. But, that’s not how society works. We have become too dependent upon each other for our own survival and prosperity that true individualism and free will can and will ever exist. Free will must never exist within a society. The simple cliché too many chiefs and not enough Indians is a clear depiction on how society works. There is a ruling class and a working class. The ruling class is made of a selected few. The working class is everybody else. The best evidence for the pursuit of free will is to be neither the working class nor the ruling class. The ruling class and the working class are a symbiotic relationship. They are ruled by one another. One cannot survive without the other. If the workers don’t work than the rulers will fall. If the rulers fail to lead then the workers will disperse to find new masters. They are one in the same, so to write.

Therefore, the pursuit of free will does not exist within the confines of society but in the outskirts of society. Isolationism is the key to free will. Become totally dependent upon yourself and no ruling class will market your free will. You will be the master of your fate/the captain of your soul. "

-Daniel Namie

“I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.”― Friedrich Nietzsche

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”― Epicurus.

Hmmmm... Isolationism and Surrender in order to be free. Drop out and give it (suffering? fear? pride? ego? shame? ambition?) up to self actualize. Sounds right... And the result? Feelings of joy?

One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it's a movie worth watching. ~ Unknown

Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames. ~ Rumi

“Go ahead, courageous ones. Doubt anything that can be doubted. The universe cannot be hurt by it and you will winnow out your own truth in the process of your quest.”
Jacob Nordby

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~Viktor Frankl

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." ~ Nietzsche

"Just feel what you're feeling. Don't think it. Feel it. Then, when you’re sure you feel it all the way, breathe and let it go. That's the key.” ~ from The Divine Arsonist

You are not a human being having a spiritual experience--you are a spiritual being having a human experience. ~ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life & you will call it fate" ~ Carl Jung

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us ~ John Lennon

"Kindle the Light in yourself,then kindle it in others-one by one." ~ Babaji

The most exquisite paradox… as soon as you give it all up, you can have it all. ~ Ram Dass

Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be — Wayne W. Dyer

Stand forward in the circle of your age. Step into the center space reserved for those who have dared to winnow out their truth by living it. Breathe the free air, feel the clear light on your face and know that your path with heart is worth every step. Live your truth.
~Blessed are the Weird~

“If you're depressed, then you are living in the past. If you're anxious, then you are living in the future. If you're at peace, you are living in the present.”
― Lao Tzu

"I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous..."
~warped bathroom graffiti~

"Oh chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music. O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?"
— William Butler Yeats

After the game, the King and the Pawn go into the same box.
- Italian proverb

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”
Jack Kerouac

Not all who wander are lost.
J.R.R. Tolkien

I wish life was not so short, he thought. Languages take such time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.
J.R.R.Tolkien

“If God did not exist, He would have to be invented. But all nature cries aloud that he does exist: that there is a supreme intelligence, an immense power, an admirable order, and everything teaches us our own dependence on it.”
― Voltaire

And then, my friends, comes the great moment. The watershed instant when you realize that this is your life, your script, your very own Magnus Opus--when you pick up the pen and sign your name, declaring your right to create something uniquely you. Nothing can ever be the same after that. You have taken full notice of yourself and the journey from that point takes on a new, epic quality.
~Blessed are the Weird

“The Bible tells us to be like God, and then on page after page it describes God as a mass murderer. This may be the single most important key to the political behavior of Western Civilization.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“The healthiest response to life is joy.”
Deepak Chopra

“I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.”
Jack London

“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.”
― Terence McKenna

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

"A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty - it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man."

“I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the harmony of all that exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

-Albert Einstein

"We're not over the hill... but we are looking at it from the summit."
-unknown

"Notes from the Road"

Over time, I developed a broad zone of comfort--meaning I could be content and even fascinated in many strange, uncertain situations. This isn't because I'm a good person or above it all. It's just because life hurts too much when I resist everything in it or hold on to outrage that "it shouldn't be this way". Life is. And that is good.
I have come to realize that this basic attitude is essential for living a powerful, dynamic life experience. It is the freedom to be anywhere, anyhow and never be a victim of circumstances.
~ your fellow traveler, Jacob Nordby

"A mind stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions."
― Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
- Alan Turing

When you complain, you make yourself a victim. Leave the situation, change the situation, or accept it... All else is madness."
-Eckhart Tolle

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
- Soren Kierkegaard

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. "
-Robert Frost

You are joy, looking for a way to express. It's not just that your purpose is joy, it is that you are joy. You are love and joy and freedom and clarity expressing. Energy—frolicking and eager—that's who you are. And so, if you're always reaching for alignment with that, you're always on your path, and your path will take you into all kinds of places. We will not deny that you will not discover miracles and create benefits and be involved in creation, and that you will not uplift humanity—we will not say that you will not find satisfaction in so many things that you create, but we can't get away from the acknowledgment that you are Pure Positive Energy that translates into the human emotion of joy.
---Abraham
“The journey is the thing.”
― Homer

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.
Jack Kerouac
"Normal is an illusion. What is normal to the spider is chaos to the fly."
-Charles Addams.

On the Road with Connie & Glen