flammifer: dum vita est, spes est

The better organized the State, the duller its humanity.

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.”

The theory behind sanctions is to hurt, immiserate, and kill as many innocent people as possible in a country until its leadership caves in to US demands. The theory behind it is mass murder or a situation of mass misery that’s intolerable. This theory is wrong and does wrong in targeting innocent people and in expecting that their misery will translate into a policy change of their government. Furthermore, in all these cases involving sanctions, the US gang has acted unjudicially as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. Evidence has been insufficient in all cases. Haste and impetuous action were the order of the day, ill-considered action at that in which consequences were not thought through. It was wrongly assumed that force could resolve the differences. Evidence and intelligence was doctored, manufactured, and lied about. Scenarios were invented, propagandised, and presented as fact. Histories were buried. The US roles in causing problems were buried. Demonising of the accused ‘enemies’ took over. All of this was very, very wrong. The theory of sanctions is wrong in targeting innocent populations. The judgements, procedures, and methods that bring about and rationalise the sanctions instituted by the US have been very wrong too. The consequences of the sanctions have been wrong as well. They have led to protracted struggles and, in some cases, to wars, because the punishments dished out to the populations didn’t result in changes in the policies of the leaders. In the US, this should be perfectly understandable. The people elected Obama to make certain changes that he promised. In all the important cases, he didn’t do it. He did the opposite. He is currently sitting with the highest disapproval ratings of his terms and the lowest approval, but he is not altering his policies at all. This is occurring in a country whose government brags about its having a responsive democracy. Why should it be expected that some other nation with a less responsive system should be able to influence their leaders when the people’s misery multiplies?

You need to realize that the way you are feeling now will not be permanent.

Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.

Man needs colour to live; it’s just as necessary an element as fire and water.

When a thing disturbs the peace of your heart, give it up.

This is the particular message of Anarchism to the worker. It is not an economic system; it does not come to you with detailed plans of how you, the workers, are to conduct industry; nor systemized methods of exchange; nor careful paper organizations of “the administration of things.” It simply calls upon the spirit of individuality to rise up from its abasement, and hold itself paramount in no matter what economic reorganization shall come about.

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.

Taking refuge in the Buddha means that we are willing to spend our life reconnecting with the quality of being continually awake. Every time we feel like taking refuge in a habitual means of escape, we take off more armor, undoing all the stuff that covers over our wisdom and our gentleness and our awake quality. We’re not trying to be something we aren’t; rather, we’re reconnecting with who we are. So when we say, ‘I take refuge in the Buddha,’ that means I take refuge in the courage and the potential of fearlessness, of removing all the armor that covers this awakeness of mine. I am awake; I will spend my life taking this armor off. Nobody else can take it off because nobody else knows where all the little locks are, nobody else knows where it’s sewed up tight, where it’s going to take a lot of work to get that particular iron thread untied. You have to do it alone.

“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”

These are the days that must happen to you.

It’s beautiful to be alone. To be alone does not mean to be lonely. It means the mind is not influenced and contaminated by society.

If you are a writer, and you have a novel idea that you are excited about writing, write it. Don’t go on message boards and ask random Internet denizens whether or not something is allowed. … Who is the writer here? YOU ARE. Whose book is it? YOUR BOOK. There are no writing police. No one is going to arrest you if you write a teen vampire novel post Twilight. No one is going to send you off to a desert island to live a wretched life of worm eating and regret because your book includes things that could be seen as cliché. If you have a book that you want to write, just write the damn thing. Don’t worry about selling it; that comes later. Instead, worry about making your book good. Worry about the best way to order your scenes to create maximum tension, worry about if your character’s actions are actually in character; worry about your grammar. DON’T worry about which of your stylistic choices some potential future editor will use to reject you, and for the love of My Little Ponies don’t worry about trends. Trying to catching a trend is like trying to catch a falling knife—dangerous, foolhardy, and often ending in tears, usually yours. I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s getting published; keeping an eye on what’s going on in your market is part of being a smart and savvy writer. But remember that every book you see hitting the shelves today was sold over a year ago, maybe two. Even if you do hit a trend, there’s no guarantee the world won’t be totally different by the time that book comes out. The only certainty you have is your own enthusiasm and love for your work. … If your YA urban fantasy features fairies, vampires, and selkies and you decide halfway through that the vampires are over-complicating the plot, that is an appropriate time to ax the bloodsuckers. If you decide to cut them because you’re worried there are too many vampire books out right now, then you are betraying yourself, your dreams, and your art. If you’re like pretty much every other author in the world, you became a writer because you had stories you wanted to tell. Those are your stories, and no one can tell them better than you can. So write your stories, and then edit your stories until you have something you can be proud of. Write the stories that excite you, stories you can’t wait to share with the world because they’re just so amazing. If you want to write Murder She Wrote in space with anime-style mecha driven by cats, go for it. Nothing is off limits unless you do it badly. And if you must obsess over something, obsess over stuff like tension and pacing and creating believable characters. You know, the shit that matters. There are no writing police. This is your story, no one else’s. Tell it like you want to.

Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.