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In that first hardly noticed moment in which you wake,
coming back to this life from the other more secret, moveable and frighteningly honest world
where everything began,
there is a small opening into the new day
which closes the moment you begin your plans.
Life sometimes is hard.
There are challenges.
There are difficulties.
As a younger man
I sought to avoid them
and only ever caused myself
more of the same.
i want to apologize to all the women
i have called pretty.
before i’ve called them intelligent or brave.
i am sorry i made it sound as though
something as simple as what you are born with
is the most you have to be proud of
when your spirit has crushed mountains
from now on i will say things like, you are resilient
or, you are extraordinary.
not because i don’t think you are pretty.
but because you are so much more than that.
rupi kaur
Do not try to open your heart now.
That would be a subtle movement of aggression towards you immediate, embodied existence.
Never tell a closed heart it must open;
it will shut more tightly to protect itself,
feeling your resistance.
A heart only unfurls when the conditions are right;
your demand for openness invites closure.
This is the supreme intelligence of the heart.
When Einstein gave lectures at U.S. universities, the recurring question that students asked him most was “Do you believe in God?” And he always answered: “I believe in the God of Spinoza.
Baruch de Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher considered one of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, along with René Descartes.
According to Spinoza, God would say
Stop praying and pounding your chest.
What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I’ve made for you.
“It is literally impossible to be a woman.
You are so beautiful, and so smart, and it kills me that you don’t think you’re good enough. Like, we have to always be extraordinary, but somehow we’re always doing it wrong.
We have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin.
Everyone can see what’s going on
They laugh ‘cause they know they’re untouchable
Not because what I said was wrong
Whatever it may bring
I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace
is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses, as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.
Sensitive ones,
don’t be so quick
to pathologize yourself
What we call
an emotional crisis
can be truth
desperately needing to erupt
from within
and take every untrue structure
down with it.
Life,
Break in me whatever needs to be broken.
Fix my hope of every being fixed.
Use me. Draw every ounce of creativity out of me.
Help me live a radically unique life, forever forging a never-before-trodden path in the forest.