Reality Means Being Visible; Being Seen And Being Heard

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As a full-time mom, I value my reading addiction because it keeps me sane. I mainly read to escape, so it’s important that i feed on paperbacks. . Ever since I changed into a toddler bed and went cold turkey with the pacifier, she’s been fighting off naps. What’s worse, the more exhausted she is, the less likely she naps. It’s been affecting her health and general behavior. She hasn’t been regulating her emotions as well as she used to. . So me and the husband discussed about it. “What can she safely consume to induce sleep?” He raised. Chamomile tea was on top of my list. I grabbed one blended with lemongrass by @ahmadtea from the grocery shelf, and it saved my sanity. . She has been napping for the last 5 days consecutively, and mommy finally gets her reading time. . Reading protects my sanity. Why do you read? . . . . #booksandtea

A post shared by The Bookstore (@blankstacebookstore) on Feb 27, 2020 at 2:16am PST

from The Woman in the Window by A. J. Finn, page 84

I think of my hard drive, swollen with stolen images. I think of Jane Russell as she looked at me, unblinking, across the park. I'm not invisible. I'm not dead. I'm alive, and on display, and ashamed.

I think of Dr. Bulov in Spellbound: "My dear girl, you cannot keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there."

Literature Gives Us Identity

from Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia

Every book changes you in some way, whether it's your perspective on the world or how you define yourself in relation to the world. Literature gives us identity, even terrible literature.

Why You Should Write Down Your Ideas

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch, page 186

Amanda glances up from the notebook, asks, "You're sure writing it down is the best way to go?"

"When you write something, you focus your full attention on it. It's almost impossible to write one thing while thinking about another. The act of putting it on paper keeps your thoughts and intentions aligned."

A Girl's Best Friend: The Tess Brookes' Guide to Leaning In and Living Out Your Best Life

A Girl's Best Friend by Lindsey Kelk

MAJOR CAREER ADVICE

"Tess is going to shoot Sadie and James tomorrow," Angela explained. "She's a lifesaver."

from the look on Cici's face, I had to assume she did not agree.

"Angela, I know it's Christmas," she replied without taking her eyes off me. "And it's time for charity and all, but do you really think this is a good idea? Can we really not find a professional?"

If we hadn't been on the millionth floor of a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, I would have dug a hole in the ground, crawled into it and tried my very hardest to die. All the fight and fire I'd felt while convincing Angela to take a chance on me melted away in front of this very mean girl.

"So much of getting ahead nowadays is believing in yourself and you seemed pretty bloody convinced of yourself in my office yesterday or I wouldn't have given you the job. You can't let someone like Cici bring you down. There are an awful lot of those in this world."

"We can sit here all night and kiss your ass. But if you just want to wallow, there's nothing anyone can do for you."

"There are going to be a lot of people telling you you're shit, either because they're jealous of you or because they really think it. You have to be able to go out there with your photos and say, "oi you, look at my photos, they're amazing," no matter what anyone else says, not only when people are nice to you."

The Most Intimate Way to Spend Time With the One You Love [Migrated Post]

The World According to Anna by Jostein Gaarder, pages 181-182

She is sitting in a spaceship with the Arab boy. They have won an international award recognizing their efforts on the planet’s behalf. The prize is twelve orbits of the earth.

There are just the two of them in the tiny cabin. They don’t need to worry about anything technical: the shuttle is steered and controlled by computers; all they have to do is sit back and enjoy the trip. 

They look down on their planet. Both of them have seen photos from the Apollo mission more than a hundred years ago. The globe is unrecognizable now. It is much more obscured by clouds and storms. This tallies with their experience on the ground. The planet that looked like a bluish-green marble now has more in common with a colorless ball of wool.

Despite all the clouds, it is still a spectacular feeling to be in space, and they can still glimpse some green, brown, and blue patches between the cloud systems. That’s Africa, and there’s India, China and Japan . . .

What surprises her most is the silence. All she can hear is her friend’s breathing. She thinks she can also hear his heart beating. Or is it hers?

The boy is looking at her and smiling. “You’re so beautiful,” he says. She is embarrassed and turns away towards their planet. She looks at the world which created her and wishes she could change the subject by saying that she comes from a beautiful planet. It was beautiful, once.

No one on Earth can see them now. They are completely left to their own devices, and to each other. Being in a little spaceship is perhaps the most intimate way to spend time with someone you love, she thinks.

Up here in space, day and night last only a couple of hours. But they have seen twelve sunsets and twelve sunrises, and above the clouds the sky is always blue.

The Deepest Form of pain Comes Out As Silence [Migrated Post]

Counting By 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan, page 163, 175

Life, I now realize, is just one big trek across a minefield and you never know which step is going to blow you up.

I go outside and sit on the steps.
I’m not waiting.
I’m just being.
Time exists only in the mind.
For someone grieving, moving forward is the challenge. Because after extreme loss, you want to go back.
Maybe that’s why I don’t calculate anything now. I can only count in the negative space.
I’m on a different planet now.
I only speak when I absolutely have to.
Otherwise, I do my best to be invisible and stay out of the way.
No matter how hard they try, other people do not understand because I’m incapable of communication.
And that is why the deepest form of pain comes out as silence.

The Key to Successful Selling [Migrated Post]

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, pages 237-240

A lot of people believe that selling requires being a fast talker, or knowing how to use charisma to persuade. Those things do require an extroverted way of communicating. But in sales there’s a truism that ‘we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionately.’ I believe that’s what makes someone really good at selling or consulting - the number-one thing is they’ve got to really listen well. When I look at the top salespeople on my organization, none of those extroverted qualities are the key to their success.

The Perfect Image-Bearer [Migrated Post]

The Secret History of the World by Mark Booth, page 21

To today's most advanced thinkers, academics like Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simony Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford, and other militant materialists who regulate and maintain the scientific world-view, the mind of God' is no better than the idea of a white-haired old man up above the clouds. It is the same mistake, they say, that children and primitive tribes make when they assume God must be like them - the anthropomorphic fallacy. Even if we allowed that God might conceivably exist, they say, why on earth should 'He' be like us? Why should 'His' mind be in any way like ours? The fact is that they're right. Of course there is no reason at all ... unless it's the other way round. In other words, the only reason why God's mind might be like ours is if ours was made to be like His - that is, if God made us in His image.


The Sacred History by Jonathan Black, page 176

Elijah, the Buddha, Socrates and Apollonius brought spiritual awareness and understanding to the world - the knowledge that we are all interconnected, that we should show compassion to every living thing, that we must play our part in the world's evolving. They all knew on some level what was happening and what had to happen, but it was Jesus Christ who brought the power that made it happen. He had the power to turn history on its hinges. Elijah, Buddha, Pythagoras brought faith and hope, but Jesus Christ brought love.

How to Create Happy Memories [Migrated Post]

I Know How She Does It by Laura Vanderkam, page 127-128

Fortunately, being mindful of your time – making a commitment to be there physically and mentally and enjoy life while doing so – makes memories possible. We control a lot less about our children’s outcomes in life than we think. They are their own people. But one thing parents do shape is whether kids remember their childhoods as happy. Creating a happy home is a conscious choice, as is creating a happy marriage.

Last Thoughts of A Man In Love Before He Goes To Bed [Migrated Post]

Grey by E. L. James, page 529

Lying in my bed, I pray for a dreamless sleep . . . but if I am to dream, I want to dream of her.