Like Streams to the Ocean Quotes

“You may meet me and then think that you know me. I am an open book, so your guesses will often be right. But the lights are on at night, and your guesses are only guesses. There are rooms inside of me that don’t face the street.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Human beings are a cocktail of masculinity and feminity. To believe that we are meant to emulate one pole at the expense of the other, and that our sex alone should tether us to a caricatured extreme, is scientifically false and destructive. ... We are alchemy, not static elements.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“When adults can’t speak to their discontent, when they can’t quite figure out what it is they’re wanting, they will try anything. They drink or commit adultery or quit their jobs or run away or live vicariously through their kids or stonewall their husbands. They knock things off the counter just to feel some control. They burn down their own house to escape it, without really knowing where else to go. This is the tragedy of being an animal with a mind. We are punching the walls to stop the ache in our chest.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“I WAS ASKED recently, “Who is your best friend?” I don’t know. I don’t use language like that anymore. It doesn’t fit. I have friends that hold the keys to different doors of my personality. Some open my heart. Some my laughter. Some my mischief. Some my sin. Some my civic urgency. Some my history. Some my rawest confusion and vulnerability. Some friends, who may not be “the closest” to me, have the most important key for me in a moment of my life. Some, who may be as close as my own skin, may not have what I need today. It’s okay if our spouses or partners don’t have every key. How could they? It isn’t a failure if they don’t open every single door of who you are. The million-room-mansion of identity cannot overlap perfectly with anyone.
But I will say, my closest friends have a key ring on their hip with lots of keys, jingling.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“When I pretend to be less or more than my full identity, I present a character to the world. One I must maintain and prune and reinvent and defend. I poison my authenticity with the acrobatics of personal propaganda, propping up the idiot dictator of my ego. Spending my time imagining what other people are thinking instead of thinking for myself.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“The thing that injured you often becomes a piece of your purpose in life. There are two privileges. The privilege of worldly access: the world being made for you, of wealth and whiteness and a runway of ease. And its opposite, the privilege of spiritual access: the world not being made for you, the forced awakening of the inner eye, the hard hand and invitation to see the world clearly. The first is a privilege that blesses you early and hurts you late. In the end, it robs you of the invitation to wisdom and harmony. The other hurts you early and blesses you in time.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“It takes a safe and wide love to teach a man that it's possible to fail and remain.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“This is everyone’s story and everyone’s duty: to reach adulthood and then do the hard work of unpacking your childhood, your family, the weapons you picked up to protect your little body. —”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Jed, it can be hard to tell the difference between an outcast and a pioneer. What if you’re meant to be the example you needed? What if God gave you your personality, your unique skill set, to equip you to walk into the wilderness and show that it can be done?” I stared at him while the question expanded in my chest. I hadn’t thought of it like that before. “And trust me,” he continued, “those examples are out there, just maybe not in your community. So look hard, read everything, pray, and move in the direction of what’s right. God will correct your steps, but you must first start walking. That’s what ‘walk in faith’ means.” My mentor didn’t say it just like that. It was years ago and I’m sure my memory has embellished it. But that conversation changed my life. Just because you don’t have a road map doesn’t mean you aren’t meant to walk in the direction of your convictions. Look at your gifts, your skills. You may be a pioneer.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Hatred, mockery, and caricature seem to embolden the wounded”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“As I get older and listen to my life, the truest things seem to live in paradoxical tension. Hope holding hands with understanding. Expectation dancing with the hard lessons of humility. The human heart piloting the mystery of the human heart.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“The stream starts small, a clear trickle. Uncluttered with the confusion of sediment or history, it rolls over rocks and joins with other newborn streams and widens. The beginning of a lifetime of widening.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“I want to be a conscious soul, curious about my makeup. I want to do the important work. But I also acknowledge that I am a strange animal, essentially unknowable to myself. And so are you.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Research made famous by Kent Berridge at the University of Michigan shows that dopamine is released when something new and potentially useful triggers the brain. We often think dopamine is the stuff of pleasure, but Berridge’s research shows that dopamine is related to pleasure, but not pleasure itself. It’s a chemical message that says, “Give me more!” And it’s activated by sex, many drugs, chocolate, and novelty. The buzz of the phone in your pocket, wondering if it’s good news or bad, the endless potential of what you could learn from the next Instagram story you swipe through, triggers dopamine release in a way similar to methamphetamine and lust. This, as I’m sure you have noticed, is very distracting.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Who we believe ourselves to be is who we become.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“gone too long, and you could lose your depth.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“So many of us chase the smoke when the fire is what we’re really after. We buy fleeting clouds of smoke with money we sold our souls to earn.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“limitless access to money not only doesn’t bring happiness, it seems to repel”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“passion.” That word is so aggressive. It implies that if you aren’t burning for what you do, then you aren’t living right.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“In time, romance and commitment become one thing.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“accepting help is not a show of weakness. It’s honoring the truth that got us here: We thrive together and fail alone.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“It takes a safe and wide love to teach a man that it’s possible to fail and remain.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Sometimes, the hurt from your youth is the horrible hand of God, refining you toward wisdom and purpose.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“So I decided to need nothing.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“WHEN I IMAGINE where I want to live, the first thing that comes to mind is where I want to have that coffee in the morning. I picture the breakfast nook or the chair and the book and the coffee and the view. My second dream is where I will have a beer. I see afternoon light getting low and angled, sending yellow rays through the tree branches. Maybe on a back patio, or on a grassy bluff over the Pacific Ocean. The imagined locations of our happy places say something about us. About how we recharge or what we crave. I want a cottage on a boulder mountain. A bed and a quilt and an old stove with a teakettle on it. A telescope and a chart of constellations. Books everywhere. Removed from the world but also in it, caring about it and for it. Being old and thoughtful with a pipe to smoke on the porch and a few squirrels who trust me. A raven would be even better. And friends stopping in. Nieces and nephews making the trek to the mountain for a night of stories and some whiskey in their Dr Pepper. I’ll pour it and say, “This never happened.” Of course, I’m too social for that fantasy. I like being in the thick and churn of society. So I’d probably get up to that cabin on a mountain and leave after a month or two. But who knows what age will do to me. Who knows if I’ll slow down, less hungry and more content. Who knows if I’ll find a raven who’ll have me.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“Um, we’re floating on a boulder in space, spinning at an incredible speed, held down by gravity and some arbitrary rule of physics. There’s only so much organic material on this planet, which means we’re made of molecules that came from dead stars. Dead. Stars. Some part of you was probably part of a dinosaur. For you to exist, every single one of your ancestors had to survive long enough to procreate, all the way back to the Stone Age and monkeys and small mammals and reptiles and fish and cells. You exist thanks to an unbroken chain of successful sex. Everything is a miracle…so calm your ass down.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“I’m just going to do what I love, make it as good as I can, and love all the lovable things around me. I”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc

“I want to grow, to do right by others and myself, to trust the open doors and knock on the closed ones. But I sometimes get scared of my own mind. Of my words. Of my ability to forgive myself. Of my self-assuredness. I need to let myself feel confusion. I need to be embarrassed once in a while. I need to cry and feel and know that I can’t explain it all away. I need the powerlessness of fog.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“I quit calling [writing] a 'passion.' That word is so aggressive. It implies that if you aren't burning for what you do, then you aren't living right. I don't want to burn -- at least not all the time. I want to lean into the steady goodness of making good things. I like calling writing my 'interest' or 'the channel through which I sense myself and serve others.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are

“It joins with other creeks and becomes a river. It is brown now with soil and experience and runoff and living. It runs slower, no longer in a hurry. Muddy with patience, yet always feeling that pull, toward somewhere it is certain exists, but has never seen. Finally, after a life that started as simply as a clear stream, it pours, wide as a mile, into the ocean, the endless breadth of eternity. The home it hoped for was real.”
― Jedidiah Jenkins, Like Streams to the Ocean: Notes on Ego, Love, and the Things That Make Us Who We Are: Essaysc