A mind is a simulation that simulates itself.

We love men because they can never fake orgasms, even if they wanted to.Because they write poems, songs, and books in our honor.Because they never understand us, but they never give up.Because they can see beauty in women when women have long ceased to see any beauty in themselves.Because they come from little boys.Because they can churn out long, intricate, Machiavellian, or incredibly complex mathematics and physics equations, but they can be comparably clueless when it comes to women.Because they are incredible lovers and never rest until we__e happy.Because they elevate sports to religion.Because they__e never afraid of the dark.Because they don__ care how they look or if they age.Because they persevere in making and repairing things beyond their abilities, with the naïve self-assurance of the teenage boy who knew everything.Because they never wear or dream of wearing high heels.Because they__e always ready for sex.Because they__e like pomegranates: lots of inedible parts, but the juicy seeds are incredibly tasty and succulent and usually exceed your expectations.Because they__e afraid to go bald.Because you always know what they think and they always mean what they say.Because they love machines, tools, and implements with the same ferocity women love jewelry.Because they go to great lengths to hide, unsuccessfully, that they are frail and human.Because they either speak too much or not at all to that end.Because they always finish the food on their plate.Because they are brave in front of insects and mice.Because a well-spoken four-year old girl can reduce them to silence, and a beautiful 25-year old can reduce them to slobbering idiots.Because they want to be either omnivorous or ascetic, warriors or lovers, artists or generals, but nothing in-between.Because for them there__ no such thing as too much adrenaline.Because when all is said and done, they can__ live without us, no matter how hard they try.Because they__e truly as simple as they claim to be.Because they love extremes and when they go to extremes, we__e there to catch them.Because they are tender they when they cry, and how seldom they do it.Because what they lack in talk, they tend to make up for in action.Because they make excellent companions when driving through rough neighborhoods or walking past dark alleys.Because they really love their moms, and they remind us of our dads.Because they never care what their horoscope, their mother-in-law, nor the neighbors say.Because they don__ lie about their age, their weight, or their clothing size.Because they have an uncanny ability to look deeply into our eyes and connect with our heart, even when we don__ want them to.Because when we say __ love you_ they ask for an explanation.

I am an Agnostic because I am not afraid to think. I am not afraid of any god in the universe who would send me or any other man or woman to hell. If there were such a being, he would not be a god; he would be a devil.

The critical spirit rises up against itself and consumes its form. But instead of coming out of this process greater and purified, it devours itself in a kind of self-cannibalism and takes a morose pleasure in annihilating itself. Hyper-criticism eventuates in self-hatred, leaving behind it only ruins. A new dogma of demolition is born out of the rejection of dogmas. Thus we euro-americans are supposed to have only one obligation: endlessly atoning for what we have inflicted on other parts of humanity. How can we fail to see that this leads us to live off self-denunciation while taking a strange pride in being the worst? Self-denigration is all too clearly a form of indirect self-glorification. Evil can come only from us; other people are motivated by sympathy, good will, candor. This is the paternalism of the guilty conscience: seeing ourselves as the kings of infamy is still a way of staying on the crest of history.

The most tragic consequence of our criticism of a man is to block his way to humiliation and grace, precisely to drive him into the mechanisms of self justification and into his faults instead of freeing him from them. For him, our voice drowns the voice of God.

Guard your tongue, and use it for good instead of evil. How many marriages or friendships have been destroyed because of criticism that spiraled out of control? How many relationships have broken down because of a word spoken thoughtlessly or in anger? A harsh word can__ be taken back; no apology can fully repair its damage.