Negative thinking

To screen our thoughts as they arise, we can pose one or both of these questions: Is this necessary? Does it serve a purpose? This practice immediately severs our identification with negative thinking.

In the absence of elders

A man does not become a man on his statutory birthday. But that is pretty much all we can muster for boys today—some date on a wall calendar. Why so thin and superficial, so uninspired and desultory? Mainly, our connection to initiatory cultures is utterly broken. We don’t know why why it would be important to introduce boys on the cusp to the other world, to the dimension of being. We think cake and candles is roughly good enough. The thing is, young men need to be initiated. That’s why so many of them die at frat parties.

Fathers

Do not raise your sons to be your sons. They’re vaster than that.

Awakening

A man awakens for the most prosaic of reasons—he’s tired of sleeping.

On the evidence

Life has been purposefully designed to confound our assumptions and contradict our expectations.