Jessica > Recent Status Updates

Nothing is painted there yet, but it’s more than a simple blank space. Hidden on that white canvas is what must eventually emerge. As I look more closely, I discover various possibilities, which congeal into a perfect clue as to how to proceed. That’s the moment I really enjoy. The moment when existence and nonexistence coalesce.

But the visible is not the only reality. Wouldn't you agree?

There was a keen light there I hadn't seen before. Those eyes told me that no matter what happened he was going to pursue it to the very end. If you don't understand something, then stick with it until you do—that seemed to be Menshiki's basic approach to life.

If you think about it, it's akin to defining yourself as compared with another person. The difference is self-evident, but still difficult to verbalize. As you said, you can perhaps only understand it as a kind of tangent produced when external and internal pressure combine to create it.

If I did it that way, the work completed itself. But now I couldn't see anything that would provide the initial spark. You can have all the desire and ache inside you want, but what you really need is a concrete starting point.

…and I foresee the day when the crowned heads of Europe will seek the hands of our dollar princesses. What was it Shelley said? ‘The world’s great age begins anew, the golden years return.’ 

"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man [or woman] can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization." In other words, it is he need to actually accomplish what one has the potential to accomplish.

To clearing opalescence. Then the sea
And heaven rolled as one and from the two
Came fresh transfigurings of freshest blue.

(Wallace Stevens)

...later, I pursued,
And still pursue, the origin and course
Of love, but until now I never knew
That fluttering things have so distinct a shade.

Wasted, thwarted lives and all to no purpose. It’s a toss-up when you decide to leave the beaten track. Many are called but few are chosen.

You know, in learning there’s the lone wolf as well as the wolf who runs in the pack. I think Larry is one of those persons who can go no other way than their own.”

The way the earliest single light in the evening sky, in spring,
Creates a fresh universe out of nothingness by adding itself,
The way a look or a touch reveals its unexpected magnitudes.

There was nothing he did, nothing he thought, that wasn’t aimed at keeping him in the favors of those whose power he craved, resented, feared. It was, oddly enough, one of the few things Arkady appreciated about Zurin: he never let you down. He would always behave as abominably as you had expected.

“So on one level we’re civilized but deep down we’re all cavemen?”

"He said that a despot feels he can get away with not following the rules because he is so powerful that society’s restraints and laws don’t apply to him. And the more powerful and alienated from society’s rules he is, the more brutal he can be.”

“Well, apparently we all have a small percent of caveman—otherwise known as Neanderthal—in our DNA, and the caveman got what he wanted with violence. It was only when society set rules and laws that punished them, that cavemen learned how to get what they wanted in other ways."

“Yes. And look what good that’s done. I’ve spent two decades exposing corrupt leadership and it’s as if nobody cares enough to do anything about it. There’s more corruption now than there’s ever been.... They’ll get used to it, and if they don’t know anyone fighting out there, they won’t feel involved. It will become the wallpaper of their lives, a distant war that drags on and on.”

I had the chance, but I refused it. I wanted to get out into the world. I’ve always regretted it. I think it would have saved me a lot of mistakes. You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.”

But a woman in threadless gold
Burns us with brushings of her dress

And a dissociated abundance of being,
More definite for what she is—

Because she is disembodied,
Bearing the odors of the summer fields,

Confessing the taciturn and yet indifferent,
Invisibly clear, the only love.