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But I find God to be an ineffectual shrink. He adopts the “do nothing” method of therapy. You tell him your problems and he, ah, does nothing.
Time is a person-made concept.” “Really? Where’d you hear that?” “I made it up.” “I don’t know if that’s true. We all live within time. It rules us.” “I use my time how I want, so I rule it.”
(That’s one of the golden rules of psychology: the shrinks say that everything in our lives is two-steps-forward, one-step-back, to justify that time you, say, drank paint thinner and tried to throw yourself off a roof. That was just taking a step back.)
It’s a talent I’ve developed—one thing I’ve learned recently. How to think nothing. Here’s the trick: don’t have any interest in the world around you, don’t have any hope for the future, and be warm.
Ishkabibbles?
Under “reason for admission,” she puts SUICIDAL IDEATION. That would be a good band name, I think.
Life’s not about feeling better; it’s about getting the job done.
Here in the real world, all equals are created animal, but some are more animal than others.
It’s a certain cult of the Hasidics: the Jewish Acid-Heads. There’s like a part of their holy writings that tells them it’s the way to talk to God. But he took it too far.”
I wish the world were like this, if I just woke up and marked the food I’d be eating and it came to me later in the day. I suppose it is like that, except you have to pay for whatever you want to eat, so maybe what I’m asking for is communism, but I think it’s actually deeper than communism—I’m asking for simplicity, for purity and ease of choice and no pressure. I’m asking for something that no politics is going to provide, something that probably you only get in preschool. I’m asking for preschool.
OBSTACLES ARE THOSE FRIGHTENING THINGS THAT APPEAR WHEN WE TAKE OUR MIND OFF OUR GOALS; DREAMS ARE ONLY DREAMS UNTIL YOU WAKE UP AND MAKE THEM REAL; THINGS I HAVE TO DO TODAY: 1) BREATHE IN 2) BREATHE OUT.
PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS CONTRIBUTE TO OUR WORLD.
A working brain is probably a lot like a map, where anybody can get from one place to another on the freeways. It’s the nonworking brains that get blocked, that have dead ends, that are under construction like mine.
regrets are an excuse for people who have failed.
I shrug. I don’t really need to explain this to Aaron. He’s been demoted from most important friend to friend, and he’s going to have to earn that, even. And you know what else? I don’t owe people anything, and I don’t have to talk to them any more than I feel I need to.
“Will you stop interrupting him?” Sarah interrupts.
“You’re kind of a dork, but with potential,” she says. “That’s all I’m trying for.”
It’s a huge thing, this Shift, just as big as I imagined. My brain doesn’t want to think anymore; all of a sudden it wants to do.
Take these verbs and enjoy them.
