Highlights

Will I follow my predilection? I will! With gusto! Having come so close to losing everything, I am freed now of all fear, hesitation, and timidity, and once revived, intend to devoutly wander the earth, imbibing, smelling, sampling, loving whomever I please; touching, tasting, standing very still among the beautiful things of this world.

. . .

We were perhaps not so unlovable as we had come to believe.

. . .

[H]e was a complainer, always fancying himself the victim of some conspiracy, who, finding himself thus disrespected, would pick some trivial fight and soon be sacked.

. . .

Because I loved him so and am in the habit of loving him and that love must take the form of fussing and worry and doing.

. . .

Free myself of this darkness as I can, remain useful, not go mad.

. . .

We would be infused with some trace of one another forevermore.

. . .

Was it my (occasional) period of doubt? Was it I that sometimes lusted? Was it my pride, when I had resisted my lust? Was it the timidity I showed by not following my lust? Was it that I wasted my life fulfilling outward forms? Did I, in my familial affairs, commit some indiscretion, oversight, or failing that now escapes my memory? Was it my hubris (utter!) in believing that I, living there (confined by mind and body), could possibly imagine what was going to occur here? Was it some sin so far beyond my ability to comprehend it that even now I remain unaware of it, ready to commit it again?

. . .

The sweetest f——er, but talks so G———ed complicated.

. . .

And yet, still: I had my moments. My free, uninterrupted, discretionary moments.

Strange, though: it is the memory of those moments that bothers me most.

The thought, specifically, that other men enjoyed whole lifetimes comprised of such moments.

. . .

No one who has ever done anything worth doing has gone uncriticized.

. . .

Doubt will fester as long as we live.

And when one occasion of doubt has been addressed, another and then another will arise in its place.

. . .

One mass-mind, united in positive intention.

All selfish concerns (of staying, thriving, preserving one’s strength) momentarily set aside.

What a refreshment.

To be free of all of that.

We were normally so alone.

Fighting to stay.

Afraid to err.

. . .

My God, what a thing! To find oneself thus expanded!

How had we forgotten? All of these happy occasions?

To stay, one must deeply continuously dwell upon one’s primary reason for staying; even to the exclusion of all else.

One must be constantly looking for opportunities to tell one’s story.

(If not permitted to tell it, one must think it and think it.)

. . .

They sought love (or so they told themselves); and hence must always be in motion: hopeful, jocular, animated, continually looking and seeking.

Seeking any new arrival, or old arrival overlooked, whose unprecedented loveliness might justify the forfeiture of their prized freedom.

. . .

Perhaps, I thought, this is faith: to believe our God ever receptive to the smallest good intention.

. . .

His mind was freshly inclined toward sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering (none content; all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but, rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others, in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone and, given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.

. . .

Sir, if you are as powerful as I feel that you are, and as inclined toward us as you seem to be, endeavor to do something for us, so that we might do something for ourselves. We are ready, sir; are angry, are capable, our hopes are coiled up so tight as to be deadly, or holy: turn us loose, sir, let us at it, let us show what we can do.

. . .

These and all things started as nothing, latent within a vast energy-broth, but then we named them, and loved them, and, in this way, brought them forth.

And now must lose them.