To live a life without risk is to be comfortable with anonymity.
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Do we ever stop wanting what we don't already possess? Maybe that's the point of death.
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I once thought time was inexhaustible, and squandered it. I'm older now, and still do.
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We're told things have changed and politics these days is downstream of culture. Could be. All I know is that while I can ignore your taste in movies or music, I cannot forgive you your political views.
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It's a truism that the one thing we all have in common, male or female, rich or poor, good looking or not, is insecurity: a psychologically painful vulnerability that leaves us open to self-doubt. There are exceptions, people we know or watch from afar who exude confidence, are decisive beyond doubt, in control of their emotions in any situation. But instead of someone wholly at ease in his or her own skin, maybe what we're seeing is someone who has anesthetized himself to stupidity.
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To travel far and wide without constraint, time or otherwise, is the greatest privilege.
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the news delivered over fibers of light sends me reeling onto the deck overlooking the bay drink in hand I gaze at an infinity of stars flickering messages from the depths of time and remember a night in a different place under different stars when we were young it was your idea to drive out to the desert and find the spot where friends of your favorite LA cowboy had committed him to his eternal rest and I thought you were crazy but agreed because you said you knew someone who knew someone who had been there and had given you a map drawn on a napkin and I told you to bring something warm because it gets cold in the desert when the sun goes down so we hit the road early the next morning and waited out the heat of the day in the shade of sand-colored boulders that began to glow as the afternoon wore on and feeling shy I made us something to eat and tea with shrooms which you drank even though it made you gag and we watched as the first stars like jewels began to emerge against the blue-black sky until I stood and pointed at an outcrop in the distance and off we went laughing like fools over the rocky terrain until as I was relieving myself behind a cactus you stumbled and gouged your shin blood everywhere and you got scared and I said climb on and we stumbled back to the camper your arms around my shoulders and I set you down on the foldout bed and cleaned and bandaged your wound while a little embarrassed you kissed my face and for the next hour or three we played canasta the only card game we both knew until in the early hours of the morning we fell asleep in each other’s arms as the moon floated over the Joshua trees
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We spend our first few decades acquiring the knowledge, skills, and emotional and physical capacity needed to navigate a rich and complex environment and the last few watching helplessly as it slowly drains away.