Let us not imagine evils which we do not fell, nor injure life by misrepresentation. Of all the souls that stand create, I have elected one. When sense from spirit files away, and subterfuge is done; when that which is and that which was apart, intrinsic, stand, and this brief tragedy of flesh is shifted like sand; when figures show their royal front and mists are carved away,–behold the atom I preferred to this clay. I have no life but this, to lead it here; nor any death, but lest dispelled from there; nor tie to Earths to come, nor action new, except through this extent, the realm of you. I dismissed as the fantasies of a lonely and embittered man who was filled with contempt for mankind and who was singularly incapable of love or friendship. I sang the song of the tall ones, the long-extinct ones, come again from a colony, lost somewhere in the modern World. Gentle beings, out of time, out of place, and maybe out of luck. And of such tragic import to my fledgling and your human kindred. Do not make me say so much that other immortals might gather up my intent and use it to bad ends. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

Here me, sweet God, wherever you are. Surely you know this World as no one else know it. Have you spied these tall children? I do not dare to say their names. I will wrap myself in comforting phantasms, roaming the winds for my own sake, dissolved now and then in the poetry of love, and envisioning bowers of love, places of Divine safety foreordained beyond Good and Evil, where I am the one I coveted could dwell. It was a predestined vision and I knew it, but it was mine to enjoy. My own desolation, it may be plausibly that it made me overestimate the discontent of human beings. It is frequently, but not universally, true that what is hoped for is found disappointed when it is attained, and while fearful envy of other people’s success is common enough, real sympathy and generosity are not quite so rare. Furthermore, my doctrine that pleasure is negative while pain is positive have been endorsed by people who are neither lonely nor embittered and who do not, as far as one can judge, lack the gift of love or friendship. He who has nothing external that can divert him must find pleasure in his own thoughts, and must conceive himself what he is not, for who is pleased with what he is? #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

Some might say that I am one of the most compassionate men who ever lived, even though at times, I conclude that life is wicked, undisciplined, and superficial farewells, and only then did the secret grip release me. As I walked slowly into the formal garden beyond the pool, and would have gone up into the roaring clouds, to be as far away from the Earth as I could be. However, the one I coveted piteous cry rang behind me. The apparent aimlessness of all that happens, this weary antiquated World goes on, begetting, with creation and with living and with death. Nathan Freudenthal Leopold, Jr and Richard Albert Lobe are examples of two wealthy students at the University of Chicago, who in May 1924 kidnapped and murdered 14-year-old Robert Franks. The murder was characterized as the crime of the century—as a demonstration of their perceived intellectual and financial superiority, which they thought, rendered them capable of carrying out a “perfect crime” and absolved them of responsibility for their actions. The Franks murder has been inspired by literature by Patrick Hamilton (Rope) and film by Alfred Hitchcock (Rope), and all is blind from beginning to the end. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Life is like an Albatross on the sea, tossed by every wave and by every wind in a White Squall; a ship headed for no port and no harbor, with no compass, no rudder, no pilot; simply floating for a time, then lost in the waves and rain of a White Squall. In addition to the aimlessness of life and the Universe, there is the fact of death. I love my friends, but they all must come to a tragic end. Death is more terrible the more one is attached to things, in the World. Life is not worthwhile, it is an unpleasant interruption of nothing, and the best thing you can say of it is that it does not last long. The partners in a marriage that is to be ruined or destroyed, squandered or wastefully discarded take no corrective action. One source of grief-related guilt is anger at the loved one for departing. This is often suppressed because it seems irrational to the conscious mind. An exciting idea is like a venomous microbe; it bites into the brain, and if circumstances do not occur to expel it, it produces a form of mania.  Chronic guilt or refusal to work through the emotion associated with lass can result in delayed grief reaction and physical ailments because the suppressed energy of the relinquished emotions reemerges through the body’s endocrine and nervous system and creates an energetic imbalance.  #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

When all the negative emotions have been worked through, surrendered to and let go of, relief finally occurs, and the former suffering is replaced by acceptance. Acceptance is different from resignation. In resignation there are still residuals of the previous emotion left. There is reluctance and a delaying of the true recognition of the fact. Resignation says, “I do not like it, but I have to tolerate it.” With acceptance, resistance to the true nature of the facts has been relinquished; thus, one of the signs of acceptance is serenity. The struggle is over and life begins anew. The energies that were bound up in the previous negative emotions are now freed up, so that the healthier aspects of the personality are now re-energized. The creative aspects of the mind develop opportunities for new life situations and further options for growth and experience, accompanied by a new sense of aliveness. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Love is not passion, for one may feel that for many; not affection, for friendship demands that. Not even sympathy and comradeship; one can find with others. Every moment of time solicits to be employed in the important business of love. #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5