human-condition

Now, it__ undeniably true that male writers (including yours truly) are generally and commercially allowed to write about __irl stuff_ without being penalized for doing so. In part this is the same old shit it__ always been ... I__e said before that men who write mostly about men win prizes for revealing the human condition, while women who write about both men and women are filed away as writing __omens_ issues._ Likewise, in fantasy, the imprimatur of a dude somehow makes stuff like romance, relationship drama, introspection, and adorable animal companions magically not girly after all.In a sense, we male fantasists are allowed to be like money launderers for girl coo

blessed beshewho isbothfuriousand magnificent

Harper: In your experience of the world. How do people change?Mormon Mother: Well it has something to do with God so it's not very nice.God splits the skin with a jagged thumbnail from throat to belly and then plunges a huge filthy hand in, he grabs hold of your bloody tubes and they slip to evade his grasp but he squeezes hard, he insists, he pulls and pulls till all your innards are yanked out and the pain! We can't even talk about that. And then he stuffs them back, dirty, tangled and torn. It's up to you to do the stitching. Harper: And then up you get. And walk around.Mormon Mother: Just mangled guts pretending.Harper: That's how people change.

Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings.

highway wildflowers swaying like the ocean. queen anne__ lace like doilies for a tea party never attended. this is a conversation between two parts of yourself. the fever will break soon, but until then i__l be untangling you from the knots in my windblown hair. i smell like a wet forest, like long grass covered in sequins. i called your name but was drowned out by the thunder. i remember you murmuring, __lease,_ while you took my shirt off. i remember you and the airy __lease_ when you pulled me toward you by my legs. i remember __leeease_ while i learned how to let go. i remember your divine __lease._ chanting it as if it__ draw a demon out of hiding. __lease, please, please._ and i screamed, __es.

we are born into this world on the tailcoats of a scream. born into gritted teeth and a shock of red across the pristine. born into a solemn hush. are you evil? you, who tore into this world on a steed of crimson_ are you a monster? we are born as angels, toothless, a mouth a gurgling brook. and as we grow, so do our wings, until we are high enough to see that our church is no more than a small forest and the altar a tree. are you a monster, angel with fangs? all teeth, thick with teeth, you can__ even close your mouth anymore. it rains and it__ like drowning. corn husk skin and we__e born again. into a time of being tied down, to a person, to a bed. a time of clipped wings. of holy cries out to a void. your wildness a convenience store in the desert, pale pink, dusty, arid. your wildness staring longingly at the screaming horizon and flicking another cigarette butt into the dirt, a lone oscillating fan its only company. we__e born into this concrete world, where sanctuary is to be alone or to pretend to like it. this world of broken bottles instead of leaf crunch. roadside motels proclaiming vacancies. inside and out. that pluck your heartstrings. a new church, a fresh sin. the altar now a white railing against a muted matte pink wall. you lean against it, hips jutted to the side. some of the eighties still lingers. you see a man in a leather jacket kissing a girl__ neck purple. he looks up. teeth are everywhere. hundreds of glistening teeth. you turn away. your wings shush against an old telephone booth, door forced closed. you__e calling your mother to say you__e sorry for hurting her, but when she answers you hang up.

he walks into the bedroom like he owns it. says, __ wanna be filthy with you._ takes me down hungry. helps me shed my skin. cafuné. he looked at me like i wasn__ something ruined. filled my vicious parts with gold. touched me with too much yearning. he said, ____ burn for you._ how can he not see we__e the creators of the fire? he growled, __oan for me._ the wolf bit down and i howled into the night.

And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?

She had said he had been driven away from her by a dream,--and there was no answer one could make her--there seemed to be no forgiveness for such a transgression.And yet is not mankind itself, pushing on its blind way, driven by a dream of its greatness and its power upon the dark paths of excessive cruelty and of excessive devotion. And what is the pursuit of truth, after all?

I realized, when I saw the forest burning, how fascinating the firelight is. It's beautiful, and people stare at it, don't they? It destroys things and kills people, but humans love it. Is it because they crave their own destruction, Sam? I want to understand your kind. I am going out into the wider world, and I must learn. But first things first. First, to escape this shell, this egg in which I have gestated, all eyes will be on the fire, all eyes blinded by the smoke, and when I walk out of here, out into your large world with its billions, no one will even see. It's the beauty of light, don't you see, Sam? It reveals, but it also distracts and blinds. It's even better than darkness.

How initially 'to get her in the sack' and subsequently to avoid 'her giving you the sack' are not identical dilemmas faced by the male species, but they sure have a bizarre habit of being bedfellows

Quotes are echos of voices transporting wisdom, humor, and love. Returning again to the human condition, fleeting once more as a dove.

Because in the end, we die. It__ like Chekhov observed in so many of his plays: __n two hundred years, no one will even know we were here.

They say that wisdom comes from suffering. This is not true. Wisdom comes from having unconditional empathy for all mankind. Any man filled with empathy is capable of gaining valuable insights on the human condition through the suffering of others. You do not need to suffer to know suffering, but you need empathy first to identify and feel the suffering of others around you. If you do not feel love for all mankind, nor see everyone around you as a valuable human and an extension of yourself, then you will never feel real empathy.

It's a mind, it works by metaphor.

Sometimes I feel like I__ losing my mind,_ she said with a hintof sadness.__ou lost your mind a long time ago,_ he said seriously. She looked at him with indignation. __hat__ a compliment for anyone who knows the freedom and clarity of losing their mind,_ he reaffirmed her.

My mind didn't clear. It had been clear before. Instead it muddled, suddenly ablaze with rioting factions of insecurities and dreams, a cacophonous battleground of conflicting moral codes and dogma. I was, therefore, back to normal.

To test a man's ego, simply ask him a complicated question. A good person will never be afraid to admit they don__ know the answer to something. And only when a man has fully dismantled his ego, can he begin to be truly good.