— that we humans have little or no influence on the two most important moments of our life. Being born and dying. That felt like the right kind of fu… - Bono

we humans have little or no influence on the two most important moments of our life. Being born and dying.

Service, ambition, duty, loyalty, the desire to be the best, the desire to say yes — not such bad character traits to have cherished. I always thought of them as strengths, but lately I wonder if somewhere along the line they became a cover for something more suspicious. The demand to be at the center of the action. To make God in our own image, to help her across the road as if she were a little old lady. This perpetual longing to be filled with the extraordinary so that you begin to lose appreciation for the ordinary.

I'm lost, I'll probably always be lost.

You belong only to the here and now. This is no Oceanus of faceless faces; you are trying to make eye contact with everyone. But you can’t … until you can. If you get it right, you’ve not just eyeballed everybody in the front row; you’ve eyeballed everybody in the venue. And there’s no one who doesn’t think you might follow them home, that you might pick their pocket or preach them your gospel or make out with them. Or their sister. Contact has been made, real and imagined.