When people get taken over by the ego to such an extent, there is nothing else in their mind except the ego. They can no longer feel or sense their humanity - what they share with other human beings, or even with other life forms on the planet. They are so identified with concepts in their minds that other human beings become concepts as well.
The drive toward Life is protective, thoughtful, vulnerable, and invested in immaculate love. It is this last that marks the difference between a wise heart muddy with real life experiences in the trenches and a dry heart that functions on rote concepts alone.
Over the years I've learned how to lock myself up in a prison of hope, knowing that God has nothing but His best planned for me. He promised me things concerning my ministry and my life.
Life is busy. There are daily concerns and obligations that have to be met, and to take time to think about how precious and special a human life is that you only get one, and that every wasted minute is lost. You can't get it back.
We have to push aside what generally concerns us most in our thought life, namely, the content of our thoughts, and learn instead to make conscious use of the element of will in our thinking.
I think that there are real concerns that we have around whose life is important and why. So if the official story is, for example, somebody was running from the police, does their life matter?
Running is a part of my medicine. It's what helps relieve my stress, and it's what helps me get away from the concerns of business and anything else that's going on in my life that I need to escape from at times - to find who I am. Running really helps me with that.
When I was young, I played the piano and studied classical music and jazz. I wanted to be a concert pianist, and if I'd devoted myself to it, I could have been. But it would have been too much work and a very lonely life.
If we all make a concerted effort and try to improve the life of someone else, then this world would be a better place to live in.
I don't know if my work is a concerted effort to make kids sad! But life and death go hand in hand. It's our condition as human beings.
We had a pretty good life, growing up in Taiwan, and I think my dad really made a concerted effort to say hey, we're going to take a chance and go halfway around the world so that my kids can have more opportunities.
My job in this life is to give people spiritual ecstasy through music. In my concerts people cry, laugh, dance. If they climaxed spiritually, I did my job. I did it decently and honestly.
I have to say I've worked very few days of my life. I used to have to cut the lawn, and when I was in junior high school, I worked at a concession stand at a stadium.
If you want to do anything, do it now, without compromise or concession, because you have only one life.
I learned to read a little in my primer, to write my own name, and to cypher some in the three first rules in figures. And this was all the schooling I ever had in my life, up to this day. I should have continued longer if it hadn't been that I concluded I couldn't do any longer without a wife, and so I cut out to hunt me one.
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.
Let's be honest with one another: almost everything is too long except life, and I know people who wouldn't even concur with that exception.
I live my life by these little church signs you see as you drive around, and there's one near me that says, 'If we really knew each other, we would neither idolise nor condemn.' And that's it: if we all knew each other, then we wouldn't treat anybody any different. And there wouldn't be any big stars, I guess.
So many people condemn me for risk taking, but I find it sort of hypocritical because everybody takes risks. Even the absence of activity could be viewed as a risk. If you sit on the sofa for your entire life, you're running a higher risk of getting heart disease and cancer.
It would seem the people who want to preserve the Penans' way of life are condemning them to a life full of diseases and a shorter life span.
