The average American child sees 20,000 murders in TV before reaching age 18. This is considered normal. Every community has video rental stores filled with multimillion-dollar films that depict people doing terrible things to each other. If you read newspapers, you have every right to believe that Bad Nasty Things compose 90 percent of the human experience. But you will be hard-pressed to find more than a few novels, films, news stories, and TV shows that dare to depict life as a gift whose purpose is to enrich the human soul.
Rob BrezsnyAnthropologists say that in every culture in history, children have played the game hide and seek.
Rob BrezsnyIf you bury your face in your tear-stained pillow and beg God to please send you your soul mate, may you not slur your words in such a way that they sound like "cell mate."
Rob BrezsnyEnjoy saying "no!" but don't make it the wellspring of your vitality. Be fueled by blood-red yeses.
Rob BrezsnyMay you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years. May you wake up... and start dancing while you're still half-asleep. May you spray-paint Rilke poems as graffiti on highway overpasses... My you learn to identify by name 20 flowers, 15 trees, 10 clouds, and one extrasolar planet... May you dream of taking a trip to the moon in a gondola powered by firecrackers and wild swans.
Rob Brezsny