INTERESTING TIMES

To practice any art,
no matter how well or badly,
is a way to make your soul grow.
So do it.
--Kurt Vonnegut

...The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others--the living--are those who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
---H.S. Thompson (Hell's Angels)

http://electricpulp.com/guykawasaki/arse/
(Found this on an autism page;
seems like lots of autists score pretty high.)

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/13/pastor-and-wife-preach-married-sex-with-24-hour-bed-in/

A pastor and his wife are urging their married couples to go have sex... I can't decide if I'm more impressed with how satisfied they look, or with the fact that they are talking about sex as Christians, here in the land of puritans.

You have a right
to experiment
with your life.
You will make mistakes.
And they are right too.
--Anaïs Nin

The Guru Papers
Masks of Authoritarian Power
by Joel Kramer and Diane Alstad

This book was particularly formative for my thinking.  I believe the first time I read it was about a decade ago, though it's been out longer.  I've recently loaned it to a friend and every time I pick it up I run across another awesome thought.  Basically it starts out looking at gurus, who they are and what they do, and why.  The tail end of the book is about authoritarianism, and the nuts and bolts of how people fall prey to bosses that don't even pay them.  It was partly this book that programmed me to be hyper-aware of the word "should".  I'm ready to re-read it, soon as I get it back...and have the time.

The problem's not that the truth is harsh but that liberation from ignorance is as painful as being born. Run after truth until you're breathless. Accept the pain involved in re-creating yourself afresh. These ideas will take a life to comprehend, and hard one interspersed with drunken moments.
--Nagui Mahfouz in Palace of Desire

Loneliness
is the poverty of self;
Solitude
is the richness of self.
--May Sarton, poet

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be,
and you help them become what they are capable of being.
--Goethe