Aspects of Life

As described above, however, several of these have been inspired by my favorite authors while others are merely complementary to my own thoughts/values, or to each other. I am not the first, or only, individual to hold these values, nor am I vain enough to believe that my writings will necessarily accurately reflect or describe them as well as these authors may have. While the majority of these quotes and paraphrases are from fictional works, it does not change the fact that many of them contain references to certain...philosophies, characteristics and lessons about life, which are worthy of aspiration, and are applicable to real life in some way, shape, or form.


Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden "White Night", p.282-283

Growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time you learn something. Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realize that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth, which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life. Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it. Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it. Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive.. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger.. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.


Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden "White Night"

There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.


Jim Butcher/Harry Dresden "Skin Game"

There’s power in the touch of another person’s hand. We acknowledge it in little ways, all the time. There’s a reason human beings shake hands, hold hands, slap hands, bump hands. It comes from our very earliest memories, when we all come into the world blinded by light and color, deafened by riotous sound, flailing in a suddenly cavernous space without any way of orienting ourselves, shuddering with cold, emptied with hunger, and justifiably frightened and confused. And what changes that first horror, that original state of terror? The touch of another person’s hands. Hands that wrap us in warmth, that hold us close. Hands that guide us to shelter, to comfort, to food. Hands that hold and touch and reassure us through our very first crisis, and guide us into our very first shelter from pain. The first thing we ever learn is that the touch of someone else’s hand can ease pain and make things better. That’s power. That’s power so fundamental that most people never even realize it exists.


Myka, "Warehouse 13"

The world is such a scary place...
Sometimes it seems like there's nothing but anger and violence and hurt.
It can be terrifying when you're out there in it; but if you know where to look for it the world also has warmth and love and forgiveness. The world has joy in it. When you find a place that allows you to experience that joy, when you find people that make you feel safe and loved, like you belong, you don't walk away from it (or from them). You fight for it!!!