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"Love blasts through our habitual sclerotic selfishness, the narrow "me first" that gradually closes us down, the dead-end of the loveless life."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/desire/desire-a-dangerous-flame-933994.html

"We all - adults and children, writers and readers - have an obligation to daydream. We have an obligation to imagine. It is easy to pretend that nobody can change anything, that we are in a world in which society is huge and the individual is less than nothing: an atom in a wall, a grain of rice in a rice field. But the truth is, individuals ( Read more... )

"An 8-year-old boy named Nolan Krieger, dressed in khaki pants and a plaid dress shirt, captured the intensifying sense of loss as he left the service for his friend Jack. “I used to do everything with him,” Nolan said, rubbing his eyes. “We liked to wrestle. We played Wii. We just played all the time. I can’t believe I’m never going to see him ( Read more... )

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Still, once in awhile, we engage one another. Sometimes, for example, we play the blinking game. While lying next to each other, very close, Mike will look at me out of the corner of his eye, a sly smile playing across his face, and he will blink once. Then, in response, I will blink once. His smile will gain in radiance. And he will answer my ( Read more... )

"A pure functioning meritocracy would produce a society with growing inequality, but that inequality would come along with a correlated increase in social mobility." (Article)

Back home and kind of glad to be back in my room. Had enough of living out of a suitcase and the weather in London was driving us nuts. It was a good trip. London's a nice city and travelling with the rest through Vienna, Salzburg and Munich was good fun and the hostels were awesome (aside from random male roomies who enjoyed sleeping in their ( Read more... )

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I felt, that night, on that stage, under that skull, incredibly close to everything in the universe, but also extremely alone. I wondered, for the first time in my life, if life was worth all the work it took to live. What exactly made it worth it? What's so horrible about being dead forever, and not feeling anything, and not even dreaming? What's ( Read more... )