What if the point of life has nothing to do with the creation of an ever-expanding region of control? What if the point is not to keep at bay all those people, beings, objects and emotions that we so needlessly fear? What if the point instead is to let go of that control? What if the point of life, the primary reason for existence, is to lie naked with your lover in a shady grove of trees? What if the point is to taste each other’s sweat and feel the delicate pressure of finger on chest, thigh on thigh, lip on cheek? What if the point is to stop, then, in your slow movements together, and listen to the birdsong, to watch the dragonflies hover, to look at your lover’s face, then up at the undersides of leaves moving together in the breeze? What if the point is to invite these others into your movement, to bring trees, wind, grass, dragonflies into your family and in so doing abandon any attempt to control them? What if the point all along has been to get along, to relate, to experience things on their own terms? What if the point is to feel joy when joyous, love when loving, anger when angry, thoughtful when full of thought? What if the point from the beginning has been to simply be?”
― Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words

Sometimes you have to be apart from people you love, but that doesn’t make you love them any less. Sometimes you love them more.

That you do not have to like a person in order to learn from him/her/it. That loneliness is not a function of solitude…That evil people never believe they are evil, but rather that everyone else is evil. That it is possible to learn valuable things from a stupid person.

That it takes effort to pay attention to any one stimulus for more than a few seconds. That you can all of a sudden out of nowhere want to get high with your Substance so bad that you think you will surely die if you don’t, and can just sit there with your hands writhing in your lap and face wet with craving, can want to get high but instead just sit there, wanting to but not…and that the craving will eventually pass.

That if enough people in a silent room are drinking coffee it is possible to make out the sound of steam coming off the coffee. That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during a panic attack.

That concentrating intently on anything is very hard work.

That a clean room feels better to be in than a dirty room. That the people to be most frightened of are the people who are the most frightened. That it takes great personal courage to let yourself appear weak. That you don’t have to hit someone even if you really really want to. That no single moment is in and of itself unendurable.

That “acceptance” is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else. That different people have radically different ideas of basic personal hygiene. That, peversely, it is often more fun to want something than to have it. That if you do something nice for somebody in secret, anonymously, without letting the person you did it for know what you did or in any way of form trying to get credit for it, it’s almost its own form of intoxicating buzz.

That anonymous generosity, too, can be abused.

That having sex with someone you do not care for feels lonelier than not having sex in the first place, afterward.

That it is permissible to want.

That everyone is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse.

That there might not be angels, but there are people who might as well be angels.

That God- unless you’re Charlton Heston or unhinged, or both- speaks and acts entirely through the vehicle of human beings, if there is a God.

That God might regard the issue of whether you believe there’s a God or not as fairly low on his/her/its list of things s/he/it’s interested in re you.

-David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest