Here's the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That's what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease.
I want to leave a mark.
But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, "They'll remember me now," but (a) they don't remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion.
...
We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can't stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it's silly and useless--epically useless in my current state--but I am an animal like any other.
Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either.
People will say it's sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it's not sad, Van Houten. It's triumphant. It's heroic. Isn't that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm.
The real heroes anyway aren't the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn't actually invent anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn't get smallpox.
...
But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar.
...
What else? She is so beautiful. You don't get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don't get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.
Tags: love animals dogs death hurt eulogy survival scars choices dying legacy making-a-difference beautiful disease fire-hydrant
We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.
Albert EinsteinTags: thinking mankind evolution survival
The men and women who continue to hold Lynn's mind hostage against her will believe the future will be tilled with terrorism, death, destruction and a challenge to the survival of America. They believe Lynn and the other lab rats must still respond to their programming for they are the second line of defence against enemies from within and without and the first line of offence in a catastrophe which would require the recreation of America's constitutional government. They are still intent on preparing Lynn for the day when she will he necessary for battle.
One summer day, all these dark realisations came flooding upon Lynn and she knew if she was ever to free herself, she needed to get immediate help.
Tags: death united-states survival manipulation destruction victim terrorism mental-health soldier dissociation mental-illness spy trauma hostage survivor assassin mind-control dissociative-identity-disorder multiple-personality-disorder split-personality psychological-abuse mkultra dissociative extreme-abuse
The fittest person survives! The fighting man succeeds! He who Fights to Fit, will Survive to Succeed!
Israelmore AyivorTags: success fight evolution survival action fighting dare food-for-thought charles-darwin excellence survive survival-of-the-fittest win survivor extra never-give-up fit succeed dream-big appropriate take-action excel move-forward survived extra-mile israelmore-ayivor dare-to-win fits fittest succeeds
Civilization transformed man from a food gatherer to a gatherer of pieces of paper: diplomas, employment contracts, money, etc.
Mokokoma MokhonoanaTags: money food civilization survival employment paper degree pieces salary diploma employment-contract food-gatherer
And in Kandahar he was taught about survival, about fighting and killing and hunting, and he learned much else without being taught, such as looking out for himself and watching his tongue and not saying the wrong thing, the thing that might get him killed. About the dignity of the lost, about losing, and how it cleansed the soul to accept defeat, and about letting go, avoiding the trap of holding on too tightly to what you wanted, and about abandonment in general, and in particular fatherlesness, the lessness of fathers, the lessness of the fatherless, and the best defenses of those who are less against those who are more: inwardness, forethought, cunning, humility and good peripheral vision. The many lessons of lessness. The lessening from which growing could begin.
Salman RushdieThere are casualties in war. Those who don’t make it back to a place of sound hopes and dreams. Some take on their demons alone. They are deceived into fearlessness and trampled by the hooves of their oppressor.
Besides intervention, there is little justice for the thousands-upon-thousands hacked to pieces all around us.
How dare we try to take life to the next level. Instead of merely protecting ourselves or scrounging up our next meal, we have the audacity to hope for something more—a witness for our lives who will survive alongside us.
Tags: fear deception war dreams hope addiction survival fearlessness witness addicts addictions intervention casualties hopes-and-dreams
I recalled something I’d read a long time ago about Satan. When he appeared, it wouldn’t be as a demon but as an ordinary-looking guy with a convincing message of peace.
Steven RamirezTags: fiction horror survival novel zombies northern-california
I was somewhere between angry and turned-on.
Steven RamirezTags: fiction horror survival novel zombies northern-california
Love is a luxury. It's something that people are allowed to indulge in when they're not simply trying to survive and keep other people alive.
Julianna BaggottTags: life love survival luxury
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