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“God doesn’t answer my prayers like he once did. But he still talks to me. He talks to me through my mind and through my own mouth. He’s upset with me because he wanted me to wave at someone on the street and I didn’t. So he took away my money and told me to leave my jobs. My family put me in the hospital and they said I was bipolar. But I’m not mentally ill. I take the medicine because it’s part of the deal for me having my own apartment, but I’m not mentally ill. When I’ve paid my debt, God is going to transform my voice. He’s going to make me a great singer. One night I had a dream that I was singing and something golden fell from the sky. And I caught it so everyone gathered around me. I hope you pray about me and then you’ll see the truth. Pray to God and ask him: ‘Is this man honest, or is he mentally ill?’”

“I always thought of kids as being simple in a way. I knew that having a child would be challenging, but I underestimated how complicated their emotions can be. I thought I’d have greater influence over my child’s mood. I imagined that I’d be able to make him happy when he’s unhappy. I hoped that I would always have a solution. But you learn quickly that some unhappiness doesn’t have a quick fix. And often it’s just part of who he is. And that can be painful to accept. Sometimes I just have to provide as much guidance as possible, and trust that he’ll find comfort within himself.”

“My first tattoo said: “I Hate.” I tattooed over it a long time ago. I was twenty-one when I got it. It was a very self-destructive period of my life. I’d dropped out of college. My girlfriend had just left me for an older guy. I’d gotten a Mohawk and was doing a lot of slam dancing. I felt like everyone in the family was disappointed with me. My dad was a very successful attorney. My brother was a diplomat. So I rebelled against everything and decided that I was going to live the whole ‘poetry lifestyle.’ I lived in the desert for a couple years. Then I came to New York and tried to survive as a poet. I ended up working as a freak in the Coney Island Side Show. But after fifteen years, even that became like any other job. It was the exact same thing every day. Only the audience changed. I still haven’t figured out what I was trying to escape. There’s no such thing as a true outsider. We all have to breathe. We all have to eat. We all have to work. I wanted to run away from everything but I ran into myself. I’m still a middle class, intellectual kid from the suburbs.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (via withlovingkindness)

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Astronomer Vera Rubin, who confirmed the existence of dark matter, turns 88 today. Somebody give the woman a Nobel already. Here is her timeless wisdom on women in science and our never-ending quest to know the universe.  (via explore-blog)

(via islamic-art-and-quotes)