23
" This is where we come," he said. Albie and I look at each other. “We?”“Me and, you know.”Albie’s eyes got wide. “I really don’t think I want to know about this.” I surprised myself. “I do,” I said. I guess I was tired of having to withhold the truth from Toby. Other than Ben, he and Albie we’re easily my best friends at Natick. Toby looked a little surprised, like he’d just assumed we wouldn’t want to hear the details. “You do?”“Yeah.”He looked around to make sure we were alone. We definitely were. No one came back here to my knowledge. Also it was cold. Like twenty degrees. Only three idiots would be in the woods in the winter, it seemed to me. “Robinson” he said. “Gorilla Butt,” I said, nodding. “I know.”“You know?”“Yup.”Toby crossed his arms an then deflated into a fake pout. “You’re stealing my scene, bitch. Scene stealer.”“Sorry,” I said. “So you and Gorilla Butt. Wow.”He flipped me off. “He hates that,” Toby said. “But, yeah. It’s hairy.”“Oh, look, almost anything else in the universe,” Albie said, heading back to campus and leaving us in the clearing. “He’s such a prude,” Toby said rolling his eyes. "
28
" Evictions were deserved, understood to be the outcome of individual failure. They “helped get rid of the riffraff,” some said. No one thought the poor more undeserving than the poor themselves.
In years past, renters opposed landlords and saw themselves as a “class” with shared interests and a unified purpose. During the early twentieth century, tenants organized against evictions and unsanitary conditions. When landlords raised rents too often or too steeply, tenants went so far as to stage rent strikes. Strikers joined together to withhold rent and form picket lines, risking eviction, arrest, and beatings by hired thugs. They were not an especially radical bunch, these strikers. Most were ordinary mothers and fathers who believed landlords were entitled to modest rent increases and fair profits, but not “price gouging.” In New York City, the great rent wars of the Roaring Twenties forced a state legislature to impose rent controls that remain the country’s strongest to this day.
Petitions, picket lines, civil disobedience—this kind of political mobilization required a certain shift in vision. "
― Matthew Desmond , Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
29
" The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction
the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.
Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,
but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.
No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:
the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.
The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--
yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born. "
― Allen Ginsberg
30
" DO IT NOWIf with pleasure you are viewingany work a man is doing,If you like him or you love him,tell him now;Don’t withhold your approbationtill the parson makes orationAnd he lies with snowy lilies on his brow;No matter how you shout ithe won’t really care about it;He won’t know how many teardrops you have shed;If you think some praise is due himnow’s the time to slip it to him,For he cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead.More than fame and more than moneyis the comment kind and sunnyAnd the hearty, warm approval of a friend.For it gives to life a savor,and it makes you stronger, braver,And it gives you heart and spirit to the end;If he earns your praise – bestow it,if you like him let him know it,Let the words of true encouragement be said;Do not wait till life is overand he’s underneath the clover,For he cannot read his tombstone when he’s dead. "
32
" Sorry, but I have to be who I am. Everyone else is taken... So be your self! Speak your truth - if there are people around you who tempt you with non-existence blast through that and give them the full glory of who you are. Do not withhold yourself from the world. Do not piss on the incandescent gift of your existence. Do not drown yourself in the petty fog and dustiness of other people's ancient superstitions, unbeliefs, aggressions, culture and crap! No! Be a flare! We were born that way. Born perfectly happy being inconvenient to our parents. We shit, piss, cry, wake up at night, throw up on their shoulders, scream... We are, in essence, in our humanity, perfectly comfortable with inconveniencing others. That's how we're born, how we grow and develop. I choose to inconvenience the irrational. "
― Stefan Molyneux
40
" Wake up, wake up!' He said to me'No, I'm still sleepy,do not disturb me'Wake up me child, see the beautyDon't cry, wipe your tears, He said to me'No, I'm so lonely, Nobody understands me'Don't cry my child, embrace the beautyDon't panic, be calm, He said to me'No, you don't understand,I need to earn money'Don't struggle my child, connect to the beautyDon't blame or attach, He said to me'How can I be loving,When they hurt me?'Don't retaliate my child, show them the beautyDon't withhold your love, He said to me'How can I give FatherWhen they only take from me?'Don't fear my child, I replenish the beauty "
