Negativity is a poison as dangerous and addictive as any drug. It darkens our outlook and skews our view of the world. Given time, it ruins our health, our digestion, our facial expression, our posture, and our body language, and has a profound affect on those around us. Negativity breeds more negativity. It chases away positive people and attracts others who are negative. There’s no such thing as a positive […]
Let’s speak and act in such a way that kindness is the inevitable response. * Instead of telling a child that a certain bright light in the sky is the moon, ask her what it is. Whatever she says will be true. * When you press the Publish button, do so as if you’ve just run all the way from your village to mine and arrived breathless and eager to […]
Even an old elephant, as big and heavy as it is, shows grace in its movement and step. Squirrels, tigers, bears — all touch the earth with the minimum force necessary, whether engaged in foraging, hunting, teaching, or play. And the wild creatures that live alongside us in cities and towns are unfazed by our sidewalks, parking lots, and streets. Unshod and unclothed, they’re like animated springs. The idea that […]
The plums in bloom. The ride through town. The news. The crows. The cemetery ground. . [ 1398 ]
Shorts, a T-shirt, and another run through the dark in the rain. Fifty-two degrees, a joy to move and breathe. And then there’s the news: the neighbor’s overflowing gutter, a streetlight out, a car with a for-sale sign, the sound of distant geese. Wet arms, wet face, wet hair, wet feet. Nations come and nations go. Rally ’round the flag — a mother’s grief, her bloody sheets, her once-bright tablecloth. […]
Also in today’s news: your birth, your death, your breath, your joy. . [ 1385 ]
Which is the greater fallacy — that we can know what is coming, or that we can be prepared? * For the latest news, see the cutting room floor. * Nothing dies. In its own time and at its own pace, everything becomes something else — the leaf, the cloud, the body, the star, the stone. What we see is a graceful dance and fleeting references to energy. * We […]
You see that life is uncertain, and yet you wait to love. As if the news is not all in, and you still might be saved from yourself. But that is the news. Love is your unrealized wealth. “The News” Recently Banned Literature, January 30, 2017 . Have We Met? Wherever you go, however seemingly common the situation or place, give your very best most careful attention to the people […]
The affairs of humans, certainly — but not exclusively. The stars, the birds, the flowers, the wind. Mountains. Whales. Insects. Worms. Wild grains. These things are all to be considered, and each has something to say. A mountain range publishes glaciers and snowstorms, rivers and forests; it does so simply, reliably, and without bias — it tells the complete truth, and nothing but the truth. This is the claim of […]
The news is a mass addiction. Every minute of every day, millions of people return to it, in quiet desperation, in anger, in distraction, for another dose, another fix. It’s a form of collective hysteria, this thirst and hunger for the negative and obvious, this fear of not knowing what is already known, and which represents only a tiny portion of what it means to be alive in this wondrous […]
William Michaelian 