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What A Lonely Species We Are, Searching For Signals Of Life From Other Galaxies, Adopting Companion Animals, Visiting Parks And Zoos To Commune With Other Beasts. In The Process, We Discover Our Shared Identity.

-Diane Ackerman

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What A Lonely Species

Diane Ackerman

...

What A Lonely Species We Are, Searching For Signals Of Life From Other Galaxies, Adopting Companion Animals, Visiting Parks And Zoos To Commune With Other Beasts. In The Process, We Discover Our Shared Identity.

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What An Odd, Ruminating, Noisy, Self-interrupting Conversation We Conduct With Ourselves From Birth To Death.

The Great Affair, The Love Affair With Life, Is To Live As Variously As Possible, To Groom One's Curiosity Like A High-spirited Thoroughbred, Climb Aboard, And Gallop Over The Thick, Sun-struck Hills Every Day. Where There Is No Risk, The Emotional Terrain Is Flat And Unyielding, And, Despite All Its Dimensions, Valleys, Pinnacles, And Detours, Life Will Seem To Have None Of Its Magnificent Geography, Only A Length. It Began In Mystery, And It Will End In Mystery, But What A Savage And Beautiful Country Lies In Between.

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Smell Brings To Mind... A Family Dinner Of Pot Roast And Sweet Potatoes During A Myrtle-mad August In A Midwestern Town. Smells Detonate Softly In Our Memory Like Poignant Land Mines Hidden Under The Weedy Mass Of Years.

Who Would Deduce The Dragonfly From The Larva, The Iris From The Bud, The Lawyer From The Infant? ...we Are All Shape-shifters And Magical Reinventors. Life Is Really A Plural Noun, A Caravan Of Selves.

I Try To Give Myself Passionately, Totally, To Whatever I'm Observing, With As Much Affectionate Curiosity As I Can Muster, As A Means Of Understanding A Little Better What Being Human Is.

The Biggest Threat To The Religious Experience May Well Come From Organized Religion Itself.

The Visual Image Is A Kind Of Tripwire For The Emotions.

We Are Defined By How We Place Our Attention.

I Watched Her Face Switch Among The Radio Stations Of Memory

The Further We Distance Ourselves From The Spell Of The Present, Explored By Our Senses, The Harder It Will Be To Understand And Protect Nature's Precarious Balance, Let Alone The Balance Of Our Own Human Nature.

Love Is The Great Intangible. ... Frantic And Serene, Vigilant And Calm, Wrung-out And Fortified, Explosive And Sedate -- Love Commands A Vast Army Of Moods. Hoping For Victory, Limping From The Latest Skirmish, Lovers Enter The Arena Once Again. ... Love Is The White Light Of Emotion. ... Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Can Agree On What It Is.

We Would Lie On Coral Sand, Below Sugary Stars, Watching Cassiopeia Mount Her Throne And The Great Bear Wash Its Paws In The South. I Would Say, "i Have A Secret To Tell You." And, Folding Me In Your Arms, Boyish And Sly, You Would Answer: "whisper It Into My Mouth.

Look At Your Feet. You Are Standing In The Sky. When We Think Of The Sky, We Tend To Look Up, But The Sky Actually Begins At The Earth.

Couples Are Jigsaw Puzzles That Hang Together By Touching In Just Enough Points.

Ecstasy Is What Everyone Craves - Not Love Or Sex, But A Hot-blooded, Soaring Intensity, In Which Being Alive Is A Joy And A Thrill. That Enravishment Doesn't Give Meaning To Life, And Yet Without It Life Seems Meaningless.

Habit, A Particularly Insidious Thug Who Chokes Passion And Smothers Love. Habit Puts Us On Autopilot.

Look In The Mirror. The Face That Pins You With Its Double Gaze Reveals A Chastening Secret. You Are Looking Into A Predator's Eyes. Most Predators Have Eyes Set Right On The Front Of Their Heads, So They Can Use Binocular Vision To Sight And Track Their Prey.

A Poem Records Emotions And Moods That Lie Beyond Normal Language, That Can Only Be Patched Together And Hinted At Metaphorically.

American Writer 1803-1882 Play Is Our Brain's Favorite Way Of Learning.

Of All The Errands Life Seems To Be Running, Of All The Mysteries That Enchant Us, Love Is My Favorite

Everyone Admits That Love Is Wonderful And Necessary, Yet No One Agrees On Just What It Is.

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In The Early Years Of The Uprising, We Survived On One Meal A Day Of Horse Meat And Soup, But By The End We Ate Only Dried Peas, Dogs, Cats And Birds.

Libraries Change Lives. They Are The Soul Of A People.

Complexity Excites The Mind, And Order Rewards It. In The Garden, One Finds Both, Including Vanishingly Small Orders Too Complex To Spot, And Orders So Vast The Mind Struggles To Embrace Them.

Success Produces Success, Just As Money Produces Money.

Positive Attitude

Nothing Reveals More About The Inner Life Of A People Than Their Arts.

Look At Your Feet. You Are Standing In The Sky. When We Think Of The Sky, We Tend To Look Up, But The Sky Actually Begins At The Earth. We Walk Through It, Yell Into It, Rake Leaves, Wash The Dog, And Drive Cars In It. We Breathe It Deep Within Us. With Every Breath, We Inhale Millions Of Molecules Of Sky, Heat Them Briefly, And Then Exhale Them Back Into The World.

One Of The Keystones Of Romantic Love - And Also Of The Ecstatic Religion Practiced By Mystics - Is The Powerful Desire To Become One With The Beloved.

I Am A Great Fan Of The Universe, Which I Take Literally: As One. All Of It Interests Me, And It Interests Me In Detail.

The More We Exile Ourselves From Nature, The More We Crave Its Miracle Waters.

Poetry Had Everything To Teach Me About Life.

Which Is Crueler, An Old Man's Lost Memories Of A Life Lived, Or A Young Man's Lost Memories Of The Life He Meant To Live?

... Love Is An Act Of Sedition, A Revolt Against Reason, An Uprising In The Body Politic, A Private Mutiny.

I Don't Want To Be A Passenger In My Own Life.

Knowing Who You Are

We Have Vexed And Bothered Every Plant And Every Animal On Every Continent.

Nature Neither Gives Nor Expects Mercy.

...for Most People In The [jewish] Ghetto [of Warsaw] Nature Lived Only In Memory -- No Parks, Birds, Or Greenery Existed In The Ghetto -- And They Suffered The Loss Of Nature Like A Phantom-limb Pain, An Amputation That Scrambled The Body's Rhythms, Starved The Senses, And Made Basic Ideas About The World Impossible For Children To Fathom.

As People Flock To Urban Centers Where Ground Space Is Limited, Cities With Green Walls And Roofs And Skyscraper Farms Offer Improved Health And Well-being, Renewable Resources, Reliable Food Supply, And Relief To The Environment.

A Flower's Fragrance Declares To All The World That It Is Fertile, Available, And Desirable, Its Sex Organs Oozing With Nectar. Its Smell Reminds Us In Vestigial Ways Of Fertility, Vigor, Life-force, All The Optimism, Expectancy, And Passionate Bloom Of Youth. We Inhale Its Ardent Aroma And, No Matter What Our Ages, We Feel Young And Nubile In A World Aflame With Desire.

We Think Of It As A Sort Of Traffic Accident Of The Heart. It Is An Emotion That Scares Us More Than Cruelty, More Than Violence, More Than Hatred. We Allow Ourselves To Be Foiled By The Vagueness Of The Word. After All, Love Requires The Utmost Vulnerability. We Equip Someone With Freshly Sharpened Knives; Strip Naked; Then Invite Him To Stand Close. What Could Be Scarier?

For Me, Life Offers So Many Complexly Appealing Moments That Two Beautiful Objects May Be Equally Beautiful For Different Reasons And At Different Times. How Can One Choose?

Love Is The Best School, But The Tuition Is High And The Homework Can Be Painful.

Because We Can't Escape Our Ancient Hunger To Live Close To Nature, We Encircle The House With Lawns And Gardens, Install Picture Windows, Adopt Pets And Boston Ferns, And Scent Everything That Touches Our Lives.

We Humans Are Obsessed With Lights...perhaps It Is Our Way Of Hurling The Constellations Back At The Sky.

Writing Is My Form Of Celebration And Prayer.

In Manhattan Last Month I Heard A Woman Borrowing The Jargon Of Junkies To Say To Another, 'want To Do Some Chocolate?'

Wonder Is The Heaviest Element On The Periodic Table. Even A Tiny Fleck Of It Stops Time.

If A Mind Is Just A Few Pounds Of Blood, Urea, And Electricity, How Does It Manage To Contemplate Itself, Worry About Its Soul, Do Time-and-motion Studies, Admire The Shy Hooves Of A Goat, Know That It Will Die, Enjoy All The Grand And Lesser Mayhems Of The Heart ?

An Animal On A Leash Is Not Tamed By The Owner. The Owner Is Extending Himself Through The Leash To That Part Of His Personality Which Is Pure Dog, That Part Of Him Which Just Wants To Eat, Sleep, Bark, Hump Chairs, Wet The Floor In Joy, And Drink Out Of A Toilet Bowl.

An Occasion, Catalyst, Or Tripwire?permits The Poet To Reach Into Herself And Haul Up Whatever Nugget Of The Human Condition Distracts Her At The Moment, Something That Can't Be Reached In Any Other Way.

Violets Smell Like Burnt Sugar Cubes That Have Been Dipped In Lemon And Velvet.

Who You Are Isn't Tied Solely To What You Say, Even Though It May Feel That Way To You Now.

Fear Is Danger To Your Body, But Disgust Is Danger To Your Soul.

The Only And Absolute Perfect Union Of Two Is When A Baby Hangs Suspended In Its Mother's Womb, Like A Tiny Madman In A Padded Cell, Attached To Her, Feeling Her Blood And Hormones, And Moods Play Through Its Body, Feeling Her Feelings.

We Live On The Leash Of Our Senses.

The Daftest Logic Brings Such Sweet Unrest.

There Are Well-dressed Foolish Ideas Just As There Are Well-dressed Fools.

Our Skin Is What Stands Between Us And The World.

Love Is The Most Important Thing In Our Lives, A Passion For Which We Would Fight Or Die, And Yet We're Reluctant To Linger Over Its Names. Without A Supple Vocabulary, We Can't Even Talk Or Think About It Directly.

Home Is Where The Heart Is, We Say, Rubbing The Flint Of One Abstraction Against Another.

Home Is Where The Heart Is

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Shaped A Little Like A Loaf Of French Country Bread, Our Brain Is A Crowded Chemistry Lab, Bustling With Nonstop Neural Conversations.imagine The Brain, That Shiny Mound Of Being, That Mouse-gray Parliament Of Cells, That Dream Factory, That Petit Tyrant Inside A Ball Of Bone, That Huddle Of Neurons Calling All The Plays, That Little Everywhere, That Fickle Pleasuredome, That Wrinkled Wardrobe Of Selves Stuffed Into The Skull Like Too Many Clothes Into A Gym Bag.

Devising A Vocabulary For Gardening Is Like Devising A Vocabulary For Sex. There Are The Correct Latin Names, But Most People Invent Euphemisms. Those Who Refer To Plants By Latin Name Are Considered More Expert, If A Little Pedantic.

As Anyone Who Has Received Or Dispensed Psychotherapy Knows, It's A Profession Whose Mainspring Is Love. Nearly Everyone Who Visits A Therapist Has A Love Disorder Of One Sort Or Another, And Each Has A Story To Tell - Of Love Lost Or Denied, Love Twisted Or Betrayed, Love Perverted Or Shackled To Violence. Broken Attachments Litter The Office Floors Like Pick-up Sticks. People Appear With Frayed Seams And Spilling Pockets.

When You Consider Something Like Death, After Which (there Being No News Flash To The Contrary) We May Well Go Out Like A Candle Flame, Then It Probably Doesn't Matter If We Try Too Hard, Are Awkward Sometimes, Care For One Another Too Deeply, Are Excessively Curious About Nature, Are Too Open To Experience, Enjoy A Nonstop Expense Of The Senses In An Effort To Know Life Intimately And Lovingly.

Like Love, Travel Makes You Innocent Again.

Symbolic Of Life, Hair Bolts From Our Head[s]. Like The Earth, It Can Be Harvested, But It Will Rise Again. We Can Change Its Color And Texture When The Mood Strikes Us, But In Time It Will Return To Its Original Form, Just As Nature Will In Time Turn Our Precisely Laid-out Cities Into A Weed-way.

All Relationships Change The Brain - But Most Important Are The Intimate Bonds That Foster Or Fail Us, Altering The Delicate Circuits That Shape Memories, Emotions And That Ultimate Souvenir, The Self.

Poetry Reminds Us Of The Truths About Life And Human Nature That We Knew All Along, But Forgot Somehow Because They Weren't Yet In Memorable Language.

Horses Have Made Civilization Possible.

We Live On The Leash Of Our Senses. There Is No Way In Which To Understand The World Without First Detecting It Through The Radar-net Of Our Senses.

Don't Just Live The Length Of Your Life - Live The Width Of It As Well.

Part Of The Irony Of Environmentalism Is Questing For Solutions When You Know You're Part Of The Problem.

[on Gardens:] I Think They're Sanctuaries For The Mind And Spirit. ... It's Easy To Feel Wonder-struck In A Garden, Especially If You Cultivate Delight.

We Try To Exile Ourselves More And More From Nature - Not Always Consciously: We Build Houses; We Dismiss Nature; Nature Has To Be Outside, Because We're Inside. God Forbid Something Like A Cockroach Comes Inside, Or Some Dust.

When I Set A Glass Prism On A Windowsill And Allow The Sun To Flood Through It, A Spectrum Of Colors Dances On The Floor. What We Call "white" Is A Rainbow Of Colored Rays Packed Into A Small Space. The Prism Sets Them Free. Love Is The White Light Of Emotion.

Our Relationship With Nature Has Changed Radically, Irreversibly, But By No Means All For The Bad. Our New Epoch Is Laced With Invention. Our Mistakes Are Legion, But Our Talent Is Immeasurable.

Hurricane Season Brings A Humbling Reminder That, Despite Our Technologies, Most Of Nature Remains Unpredictable.

So Often Loneliness Comes From Being Out Of Touch With Parts Of Oneself. We Go Searching For Those Parts In Other People, But There's A Difference Between Feeling Separate From Others And Separate From Oneself.

Life Is A Thing That Mutates Without Warning, Not Always In Enviable Ways. All Part Of The Improbable Adventure Of Being Alive, Of Being A Brainy Biped With Giant Dreams On A Crazy Blue Planet.

I'm Certainly Not Opposed To Digital Technology, Whose Graces I Daily Enjoy And Rely On In So Many Ways. But I Worry About Our Virtual Blinders.

And Yet, Words Are The Passkeys To Our Souls. Without Them, We Can't Really Share The Enormity Of Our Lives.

I'm An Earth Ecstatic, And My Creed Is Simple: All Life Is Sacred, Life Loves Life, And We Are Capable Of Improving Our Behavior Toward One Another. As Basic As That Is, For Me It's Also Tonic And Deeply Spiritual, Glorifying The Smallest Life-form And Embracing The Most Distant Stars.

The Idea Of Safety Had Shrunk Into Particles - One Snug Moment, Then The Next. Meanwhile, The Brain Piped Fugues Of Worry And Staged Mind-theaters Full Of Tragedies And Triumphs, Because Unfortunately, The Fear Of Death Does Wonders To Focus The Mind, Inspire Creativity, And Heightens The Senses. Trusting One's Hunches Only Seems Gamble If One Has Time For Seem; Otherwise The Brain Goes On Autopilot And Trades The Elite Craft Of Analysis For The Best Rapid Insights That Float Up From Its Danger Files And Ancient Bag Of Tricks.

Tranquillity Hides In Small Spaces, And When Found Needs To Be Treasured, Because You Know It's A Phantom That Will Slip Away Again.

Though We Marry As Adults, We Don't Marry Adults. We Marry Children Who Have Grown Up And Still Rejoice In Being Children, Especially If We're Creative.

Words Are Such Small Things, Like Confetti In The Brain, And Yet They Are Color And Clarify Everything, They Can Stain The Mind Or Warp The Feelings.

Nature Is More Like A Seesaw Than A Crystal, A Never-ending Conga Line Of Bold Moves And Corrections.

Because Poets Feel What We're Afraid To Feel, Venture Where We're Reluctant To Go, We Learn From Their Journeys Without Taking The Same Dramatic Risks.

Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World.

Things That Live By Night Live Outside The Realm Of 'normal' Time And So Suggest Living Outside The Realm Of Good And Evil, Since We Have Moralistic Feelings About Time. Chauvinistic About Our Human Need To Wake By Day And Sleep By Night, We Come To Associate Night Dwellers With People Up To No Good At A Time When They Have The Jump On The Rest Of Us And Are Defying Nature, Defying Their Circadian Rhythms.

Wonder Is A Bulky Emotion. When You Let It Fill Your Heart And Mind, There Isn't Room For Anxiety, Distress Or Anything Else.

A Self Is A Frightening Thing To Waste, It's The Lens Through Which One's Whole Life Is Viewed, And Few People Are Willing To Part With It, In Death, Or Even Imaginatively, In Art.

A Kiss Is Like Singing Into Someone's Mouth.

We Ogle Plants And Animals Up Close On Television, The Internet And In The Movies. We May Not Worship The Animals We See, But We Still Regard Them As Necessary Physical And Spiritual Companions. Technological Nature Can't Completely Satisfy That Yearning.

It Began In Mystery, And It Will End In Mystery, But What A Savage And Beautiful Country Lies In Between.

Give A Man Enough Rope And He'll Wrap Himself Around Your Little Finger.

History Is An Agreed-upon Fiction.

Love Is Like A Batik Created From Many Emotional Colors, It Is A Fabric Whose Pattern And Brightness May Vary.

My Mother Always Said I Must Be Part Mongolian Because Of My Lotus-pale Complexion And Squid-ink Black Hair.

To Begin To Understand The Gorgeous Fever That Is Consciousness, We Must Try To Understand The Senses And What They Can Tell Us About The Ravishing World We Have The Privilege To Inhabit.

There Is A Way Of Beholding Nature Which Is A Form Of Prayer, A Way Of Minding Something With Such Clarity And Aliveness That The Rest Of The World Recedes. It . . . Gives The Brain A Small Vacation.

Adventure Is Not Something You Travel To Find. It's Something You Take With You, Or You're Not Going To Find It When You Arrive.

There's No Place You Can Go On The Prairie That You Don't Hear The White Noise Of The Wind, Steady And Rough As Surf Curling Along A Non-existant Shore.

Words Are Small Shapes In The Gorgeous Chaos Of The World. ... They Bring The World Into Focus, They Corral Ideas, They Hone Thoughts, They Paint Watercolors Of Perception.

Happiness Doesn't Require Laughter, Only Well-being And A Sense That The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart, Not Mine.

Much Of Life Becomes Background, But It Is The Province Of Art To Throw Buckets Of Light Into The Shadows And Make Life New Again.

Disassociating, Mindfulness, Transcendence-whatever The Label-it's A Sort Of Loophole In Our Contract With Reality, A Form Of Self-rescue.

Poetry Is An Act Of Distillation. It Takes Contingency Samples, Is Selective. It Telescopes Time. It Focuses What Most Often Floods Past Us In A Polite Blur.

We're Losing Biodiversity Globally At An Alarming Rate, And We Need A Cornucopia Of Different Plants And Animals, For The Planet's Health And Our Own.

The Great Affair, The Love Affair With Life, Is To Live As Variously As Possible, To Groom One's Curiosity Like A High-spirited Thoroughbred, Climb Aboard, And Gallop Over The Thick, Sunstruck Hills Every Day.

If We Mammals Don't Get Something To Eat Every Day Or Two, Our Temperature Drops, All Our Signs Fall Off, And We Begin To Starve. Living At Biological Red Alert, It's Not Surprising How Obsessed We Are With Food; I'm Just Amazed We Don't Pace And Fret About It All The Time.

What Do Those Of Us Who Aren't Tall, Flawlessly Sculpted Adolescents Do? Answer: Console Ourselves With How Relative Beauty Can Be... Thank Heavens For The Arousing Qualities Of Zest, Intelligence, Wit, Curiosity, Sweetness, Passion, Talent And Grace.

Choice Is A Signature Of Our Species.

After All, Coffee Is Bitter, A Flavor From The Forbidden And Dangerous Realm.

One Of The Things I Like Best About Animals In The Wild Is That They're Always Off On Some Errand. They Have Appointments To Keep. It's Only We Humans Who Wonder What We're Here For.

Mystery Causes A Mental Itch, Which The Brain Tries To Soothe With The Balm Of Reasonable Talk.

There Is That Unique Moment When One Confronts Something New And Astonishment Begins.

We Tend To Think Of Heroes Only In Terms Of Violent Combat, Whether It's Against Enemies Or A Natural Disaster. But Human Beings Also Perform Radical Acts Of Compassion; We Just Don't Talk About Them, Or We Don't Talk About Them As Much.

We Tend To Think Of Memories As Monuments We Once Forged And May Find Intact Beneath The Weedy Growth Of Years. But, In A Real Sense, Memories Are Tied To And Describe The Present. Formed In An Idiosyncratic Way When They Happened, They're Also True To The Moment Of Recall, Including How You Feel, All You've Experienced, And New Values, Passions, And Vulnerability. One Never Steps Into The Same Stream Of Consciousness Twice.

For The Longest Time I Didn't Realize I Was Creative - I Just Thought I Was Strange.

There Is A Furnace In Our Cells, And When We Breathe We Pass The World Through Our Bodies, Brew It Lightly, And Turn It Loose Again, Gently Altered For Having Known Us.

I Like Handling Newborn Animals. Fallen Into Life From An Unmappable World, They Are The Ultimate Immigrants, Full Of Wonder And Confusion.

Love, Like Truth, Is The Unassailable Defense.

The Well Of Nature Is Full Today. Time To Go Outside And Take A Drink.

Not Much Is Known About Alligators. They Don't Train Well. And They're Unwieldy And Rowdy To Work With In Laboratories.

When I Go Biking, I Am Mentally Far Far Away From Civilization. The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart.

Living With Anyone For Many Years Takes Skill. To Keep Peace In The Household, Couples Learn To Adapt To One Another, Hopefully In Positive Ways.

Flying Has Changed How We Imagine Our Planet, Which We Have Seen Whole From Space, So That Even The Farthest Nations Are Ecological Neighbors. It Has Changed Our Ideas About Time. When You Can Gird The Earth At 1,000 M.p.h., How Can You Endure The Tardiness Of A Plumber? Most Of All, Flying Has Changed Our Sense Of Our Body, The Personal Space In Which We Live, Now Elastic And Swift. I Could Be In Bombay For Afternoon Tea If I Wished. My Body Isn't Limited By Its Own Weaknesses; It Can Rush Through Space.

Love Is The White Light Of Emotion.

One Can Live At A Low Flame. Most People Do. For Some, Life Is An Exercise In Moderation (best China Saved For Special Occasions), But Given Something Like Death, What Does It Matter If One Looks Foolish Now And Then, Or Tries Too Hard, Or Cares Too Deeply?

On Some Summer Days In New York City, The Air Hangs Thickly Visible, Like The Combined Exhalations Of Eight Million Souls. Steam Rising From Vents Underground Makes You Wonder If There Isn't One Giant Sweat Gland Lodged Beneath The City.

We Evolved As Creatures Knitted Into The Fabric Of Nature, And Without Its Intimate Truths, We Can Find Ourselves Unraveling.

The Brain Is Only Three Pounds Of Blood, Dream, And Electricity, And Yet From That Mortal Stew Come Beethoven's Sonatas. Dizzie Gillespie's Jazz. Audrey Hepburn's Wish To Spend The Last Month Of Her Life In Somalia, Saving Children.

Shaped A Little Like A Loaf Of French Country Bread, Our Brain Is A Crowded Chemistry Lab, Bustling With Nonstop Neural Conversations.

Our Sense Of Safety Depends On Predictability, So Anything Living Outside The Usual Rules We Suspect To Be An Outlaw, A Ghoul.

What Is Erotic? The Acrobatic Play Of The Imagination. The Sea Of Memories In Which We Bathe. The Way We Caress And Worship Things With Our Eyes. Our Willingness To Be Stirred By The Sight Of The Voluptuous. What Is Erotic Is Our Passion For The Liveliness Of Life.

I Consider Fiction A Very High-class Form Of Lying. I Enjoy And Admire It Enormously, But I Don't Think I'm Very Good At It.

Look In The Mirror. The Face That Pins You With Its Double Gaze Reveals A Chastening Secret.

Knowing Who You Are

Keeping Secrets

No Matter How Politely One Says It, We Owe Our Existence To The Farts Of Blue-green Algae.

Nothing Is More Memorable Than A Smell. One Scent Can Be Unexpected, Momentary And Fleeting, Yet Conjure Up A Childhood Summer Beside A Lake In The Mountains...

We Can't Enchant The World, Which Makes Its Own Magic; But We Can Enchant Ourselves By Paying Deep Attention

As The Most Social Apes, We Inhabit A Mirror-world In Which Every Important Relationship, Whether With Spouse, Friend Or Child, Shapes The Brain, Which In Turn Shapes Our Relationships.

Important Relationships

In Rare Moments Of Deep Play, We Can Lay Aside Our Sense Of Self, Shed Time's Continuum, Ignore Pain, And Sit Quietly In The Absolute Present, Watching The World's Ordinary Miracles. No Mind Or Heart Hobbles. No Analyzing Or Explaining. No Questing For Logic. No Promises. No Goals. No Relationships. No Worry. One Is Completely Open To Whatever Drama May Unfold.

Nothing Is More Memorable Than A Smell. One Scent Can Be Unexpected, Momentary And Fleeting, Yet Conjure Up A Childhood Summer Beside A Lake In The Mountains; Another, A Moonlit Beach; A Third, A Family Dinner Of Pot Roast And Sweet Potatoes During A Myrtle-mad August In A Midwestern Town. Smells Detonate Softly In Our Memory Like Poignant Land Mines Hidden Under The Weedy Mass Of Years. Hit A Tripwire Of Smell And Memories Explode All At Once. A Complex Vision Leaps Out Of The Undergrowth.

I Believe Consciousness Is Brazenly Physical, A Raucous Mirage The Brain Creates To Help Us Survive.

It's So Acceptably Easy For A Woman Not To Strive Too Hard, Not To Be Too Adventure-crazed, Not To Take Too Many Risks, Not To Enjoy Sex With Full Candor ... It Isn't Seemly For A Woman To Have That Much Zest.

There Was Nothing To Do But Wait. It Is Always Like This For Naturalists, And For Poets--the Long Hours Of Travel And Preparation, And Then The Longer Hours Of Waiting. All For That One Electric, Pulse-revving Vision When The Universe Suddenly Declares Itself.

Above All, We Ask The Poet To Teach Us A Way Of Seeing.

What A Lonely Species We Are, Searching For Signals Of Life From Other Galaxies, Adopting Companion Animals, Visiting Parks And Zoos To Commune With Other Beasts. In The Process, We Discover Our Shared Identity.

Artificial Intelligence Is Growing Up Fast, As Are Robots Whose Facial Expressions Can Elicit Empathy And Make Your Mirror Neurons Quiver.

As A Species, We've Somehow Survived Large And Small Ice Ages, Genetic Bottlenecks, Plagues, World Wars And All Manner Of Natural Disasters, But I Sometimes Wonder If We'll Survive Our Own Ingenuity.

Working From Home Meant We Could Vary Snack And Coffee Breaks, Change Our Desks Or View, Goof Off, Drink On The Job, Even Spend The Day In Pajamas, And Often Meet To Gossip Or Share Ideas. On The Other Hand, We Bossed Ourselves Around, Set Impossible Goals, And Demanded Longer Hours Than Office Jobs Usually Entail. It Was The Ultimate "flextime," In That It Depended On How Flexible We Felt Each Day, Given Deadlines, Distractions, And Workaholic Crescendos.

Variety Is The Pledge That Matter Makes To Living Things.

I'm Sure Civilizations Will Still Evolve Through Play, Or Rather As Play, Since That Seems To Be A Fundamental Mechanism Of Our Humanity.

I Don't Want To Get To The End Of My Life And Find That I Lived Just The Length Of It. I Want To Have Lived The Width Of It As Well.

We're Dabbling In Eugenics All The Time, Breeding Ideal Crops To Replace Less Aesthetic Or Nutritious Or Hardy Varieties; Leveling Forests To Graze Cattle Or Erect Shopping Malls And Condos; Planting Groves Of A Few Familiar Trees That Homeowners And Industries Prefer.

Flight Is Nothing But An Attitude In Motion.

Human Beings Are Sloshing Sacks Of Chemicals On The Move.

Knee-deep In The Cosmic Overwhelm, I’m Stricken By The Ricochet Wonder Of It All: The Plain Everythingness Of Everything, In Cahoots With The Everythingness Of Everything Else.

As Fleeting Emotions Stalk It, A Face Can Leak Fear Or The Guilt Of A Forming Lie.

Writer's Block Is A Luxury Most People With Deadlines Don't Have.

Habitats Keep Evolving New Pageants Of Species, And We Shouldn't Interfere.

The Senses Don't Just Make Sense Of Life In Bold Or Subtle Acts Of Clarity, They Tear Reality Apart Into Vibrant Morsels And Reassemble Them Into A Meaningful Pattern.

Humans Are The Most Successful Invasives Of All Time.

A Life Like An Intricately Woven Basket, Frayed, Worn, Broken, Unraveled, Reworked, Reknit From Many Of Its Original Pieces... Life Can Survive In The Constant Shadow Of Illness, And Even Rise To Moments Of Rampant Joy, But The Shadow Remains, And One Has To Make Space For It.

So Before I Start Work On A Book, I'm Like A Pregnant Mole - I Obsessively Tidy And Order My Closets And Everything In My Study. Because There's Such A Cascade Of Images And Ideas That I'm Grapping With Mentally, I Couldn't Also Be In A Chaotic Setting.

Hope And Uncertainty [are] The Twin Ingredients Necessary For Romance To Thrive. ... Nothing Begins With So Much Excitement And Hope, Or Fails As Often, As Love.

I Think If You Look At Any Facet Of Nature In Enough Detail, You Find It Fascinating. How Could You Not? The Universe Is So Full Of Marvels. Here's An Example -- Rain, The Shape Of Rain. I Was Minding My Own Business, Working On My Book, Looking Out The Window, And It Was Raining And I Was Noticing That The Raindrops Were Falling In That Classic Round-looking Way, And I Thought, 'i Wonder If Raindrops Really Are Round?' So I Started Researching It A Little, And I Discovered That Raindrops Change Shape 300 Times A Second.

People Search For Love As If It Were A City Lost Beneath The Desert Dunes, Where Pleasure Is The Law, The Streets Are Lined With Brocade Cushions, And The Sun Never Sets.

For If I Do Something, I Never Do It Thoughtlessly.

When I Go Biking, I Repeat A Mantra Of The Day's Sensations: Bright Sun, Blue Sky, Warm Breeze, Blue Jay's Call, Ice Melting And So On. This Helps Me Transcend The Traffic, Ignore The Clamorings Of Work, Leave All The Mind Theaters Behind And Focus On Nature Instead. I Still Must Abide By The Rules Of The Road, Of Biking, Of Gravity. But I Am Mentally Far Away From Civilization. The World Is Breaking Someone Else's Heart.

Though Most Of Us Don't Hunt, Our Eyes Are Still The Great Monopolists Of Our Senses. To Taste Or Touch Your Enemy Or Your Food, You Have To Be Unnervingly Close To It. To Smell Or Hear It, You Can Risk Being Further Off. But Vision Can Rush Through The Fields And Up The Mountains, Travel Across Time, Country, And Parsecs Of Outer Space, And Collect Bushel Baskets Of Information As It Goes. Animals That Hear High Frequencies Better Than We Do

What Would Dawn Have Been Like, Had You Awakened? It Would Have Sung Through Your Bones. All I Can Do This Morning Is Let It Sing Through Mine.

Touch Seems To Be As Essential As Sunlight.

I'm Fascinated How Often And With What Whole-heartedness People Will Risk Their Lives To Perform Acts Of Courage, Sacrifice, And Compassion For Total Strangers.

If Cynicism Is Inevitable As One Ages, So Is The Yearning For Innocence. To Children Heaven Is Being An Adult, And To Adults Heaven Is Being Children Again.

Hit A Tripwire Of Smell And Memories Explode All At Once. A Complex Vision Leaps Out Of The Undergrowth.

I Swear I Will Not Dishonor My Soul With Hatred, But Offer Myself Humbly As A Guardian Of Nature, As A Healer Of Misery, As A Messenger Of Wonder, As An Architect Of Peace.

I Hate The Fearful Trimming Of Possibilities That Age Brings.

Nature Is Also Great Fun. To Pretend That Nature Isn't Fun Is To Miss Much Of The Joy Of Being Alive.

Because Iq Tests Favor Memory Skills And Logic, Overlooking Artistic Creativity, Insight, Resiliency, Emotional Reserves, Sensory Gifts, And Life Experience, They Can't Really Predict Success, Let Alone Satisfaction.

Who Would Drink From A Cup When They Can Drink From The Source?

The Heart Is A Museum, Filled With The Exhibits Of A Lifetime's Loves.

Culture Is What People Invent When They Have Lost Nature.

In The Absence Of Touching And Being Touched, People Of All Ages Can Sicken And Grow Touched Starved. Touch Seems To Be As Essential As Sunlight.

It's Essential To Tailor Rehab To What Impassions Someone. The Brain Gradually Learns By Riveting Its Attention-through Endless Repetitions.

The Knowing, I Told Myself, Is Only A Vapor Of The Mind, And Yet It Can Wreck Havok With One's Sanity.

For Better Or Worse, Zoos Are How Most People Come To Know Big Or Exotic Animals. Few Will Ever See Wild Penguins Sledding Downhill To Sea On Their Bellies, Giant Pandas Holding Bamboo Lollipops In China Or Tree Porcupines In The Canadian Rockies, Balled Up Like Giant Pine Cones.

In The Winter, I Enjoy Cross-country Skiing And Raising Orchids And Amaryllises. If I Could Grow Tropical Flowers As Perennials, I Would, Especially Hibiscus And Mandavilla.

Adult Bats Don't Weigh Much. They're Mainly Fur And Appetite.

It's Animal By Animal That You Save A Species.

In Our Heart We Know That Life Loves Life. Yet We Feast On Some Of The Other Life-forms With Which We Share Our Planet; We Kill To Live. Taste Is What Carries Us Across That Rocky Moral Terrain, What Makes The Horror Palatable, And The Paradox We Could Not Defend By Reason Melts Into A Jungle Of Sweet Temptations.

Smell Is The Mute Sense, The One Without Words.

Couples Are Jigsaw Puzzles That Hang Together By Touching In Just Enough Points. They're Never Total Fits Or Misfits. In Time, A Pair Invents Its Own Commonwealth, Complete With Anthems, Rituals, And Lingos-a Cult Of Two With Fallible Gods.

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Kamla Persad-Bissessar

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