As we lifted off, China growing ever more distant from the window-seat, the endless ocean opening up before us, I was torn between the excitement of something new and leaving that which I'd grown to love. In that moment, I understood we may never come back; that we were floating there suspended between two worlds, above the world. There was no logic in where we would go from here, nor any limitation. We had each other, and we knew now of what adaptation we were capable. Their faces flashed through my mind, and I wondered if we'd ever find a country like that again, or if we'd ever be as open with new friends, knowing now what it was like to leave them. Like a first love lost. I hoped we'd have the courage to love Germany so that the day we'd leave our hearts would also break. For what is life except that kind of attachment? And isn't it true that one can live in a place all their life, surrounded by comfort and familiarity, and never feel this longing? As the last view of China slipped off the horizon, I promised myself that I would always dare to love, squeezing Patrick's hand, and seeing that in our love for each other, we'd always have the strength to let go.

A Strange Prayer:Dear Lord, I, the self searching illusion, has seen and experienced the outer world:relationships,success and failure,true friends, strangers and backbiters.I lived the different emotionsduring different seasons;I witnessed ups & downs,enjoyed love & hate,was good & bad,faced beauty & ugliness.There were times when I was brave,there were times when I was a coward.There were times when I was proactive,there were times when I was indecisive.After, flying high in the skies,and yet being a loser...After, being nothing & no one,and yet feeling content..I have understood the differencebetween lust and love,happiness and sadness,selfishness and selflessness.One often leads to another;another secretly carries the one!Yet I am lostbetween being and becoming.An inner voice admits thatmy heart is an unexplored realm,my mind is a prisoner to my wishful thinking,and the soul is unknown to me.Setting that unknown free... now, this is my heartiest wish.As Saurabh Sharma,the human being,Ialwayspray to thee, " O lord, set me free.I don't want love,I don't want to be loved;I want myself to be love itself now.That beautiful, silent and divine existence...!I want to get merged into that.Please give me wisdom and courage; Merge me into your supreme kingdom by setting my soul free.

My belief is that when you're telling the truth, you're close to God. If you say to God, "I am exhausted and depressed beyond words, and I don't like You at all right now, and I recoil from most people who believe in You," that might be the most honest thing you've ever said. If you told me you had said to God, "It is all hopeless, and I don't have a clue if You exist, but I could use a hand," it would almost bring tears to my eyes, tears of pride in you, for the courage it takes to get real-really real. It would make me want to sit next to you at the dinner table.So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light. It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light - I suppose they blink their mushroomy eyes, like the rest of us.Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward light. Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond our modest receptors, to what is way beyond us, and deep inside.

LET’S GO BACK HOMEI can't think about you,Without smiling.What I wouldn’t give,To go back there,Take you in my arms,Kiss you, And tell you,"I still love you."It's been three decades now,And still your smile's with me,Your wave goodbye, The love in your eyes, And everything else you gave me,Before that highway fog swept in,And stole your spirit away.Oh- to return by your side again, Fish beside the Pleasant Hill Dam,Hike through the Mayer's woods, Hang out on your big hill,Sleep naked in your twin bed,Fill your room with laughter- And marijuana smoke.You returned home-And I traveled on down the road,Found new loves,Safely took them under my wing,And deeply into my heart.But you know, as I do-This wasn’t always possible.I didn’t always have the fire- The courage to stand tall,The joy to expand, Nor the love to give deeply.These were all your gifts--To me.Someday-When I close my eyes for good,And cry out- "Lord- forgive me for I have sinned-"I'll joyously return by your side,Take you into my arms, Kiss you, And tell you,"I still love you.

Life, how I have dreaded you," said Rhoda, "oh, human beings, how I have hated you! How you have nudged, how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in Oxford Street, how squalid sitting opposite each other staring in the Tube! Now as I climb this mountain, from the top of which I shall see Africa, my mind is printed with brown-paper parcels and your faces. I have been stained by you and corrupted. You smelt so unpleasant, too, lining up outside doors to buy tickets. All were dressed in indeterminate shades of grey and brown, never even a blue feather pinned to a hat. None had the courage to be one thing rather than another. What dissolution of the soul you demanded in order to get through one day, what lies, bowings, scrapings, fluency and servility! How you changed me to one spot, one hour, one chair, and sat yourselves down opposite! How you snatched from me the white spaces that lie between hour and hour and rolled them into dirty pellets and tossed them into wastepaper baskets with your greasy paws. Yet those were my life.

I began to realize how simple life could be if one had a regular routine to follow with fixed hours and a fixed salary and very little original thinking to do. The life of a writer is absolute hell compared with the life of a businessman. The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him. If he is a writer of fiction he lives in a world of fear. Each new day demands new ideas and he can never be sure whether he is going to come up with them or not. Two hours of writing fiction leaves this particular writer absolutely drained. For those two hours he has been miles away, he has been somewhere else, in a different place with totally different people, and the effort of swimming back into normal surroundings is very great. It is almost a shock. The writer walks out of his workroom in a daze. He wants a drink. He needs it. It happens to be a fact that nearly every writer of fiction in the world drinks more whisky than is good for him. He does it to give himself faith, hope and courage. A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom. He has no master except his own soul, and that, I am sure, is why he does it.

All kinds of things are happening to me." I begin. ,,Some I choose, some I didn't. I don't know how to tell one from the other any more. What I mean is, it feels like everything's been decided in advance - that I'm following a path somebody else has already mapped out for me. It doesn't matter how much I think things over, how much effort I put into it. In fact, the harder I try, the more I lose my sense od who I am. It's as if my identity's an orbit that I've strayed far away from, and that really hurts. But more than that, it scares me. Just thinking about it makes me flinch.Oshima gazes deep into m eyes. "Listen, Kafka. What you are experiencing now is the motif od many Greek tragedies. Man does not chose fate. Fate chooses man. That is the basic world view of Greek drama. And the sense od tragedy - according to Aristotle - somes, ironically enough, not drom the protagonist's weak points but from his good qualities. Do you know what I am getting at? People are drawn deeper into tragedy not by their defects but by their virtues. Sophocles' Oedipus Rex being a Great example. Oedipus is drawn into tragedy not because of lazines or stupidity, but because of his courage and honesty. So an inevitable irony results.

Aloneness – that is what SM feels like to me. Isolated, alone, separated, left out as I silently stand by watching others experience life while the words freeze inside me, afraid to speak up or join in a conversation. Actually feeling the anxiety shaking inside my chest as I try to get up the courage to speak to someone or call or text a friend. SM feels like the child standing alone behind the door watching the other kids in the playground – afraid to ask, 'may I play?' It feels like the teenager standing silently against the wall, listening to classmates laugh and chat, invisible to everyone and wondering what it would be like to have a friend. It feels like the 50-year-old office worker, alone in her cube while others chat and laugh in the aisle, still left out. I live inside a shell, a mask that looks like me, but isn't me. I am in here, but it is really hard to let others see. I'm so grateful for the few dear friends I have now. Most people, though, only see the shell and assume I'm aloof and uncaring because I am quiet. I feel very deeply. I feel others' joy and pain intensely, yet they rarely know. I'm not quiet because I am uncaring. I'm silent because I'm afraid.

Fate is a woman, I said to them. In fact, she is three women. Young, like us, so that they will have the courage to be cruel, having no weight of memory to teach temperance. Young, but so old, older than any stone. Their hair is silver, but full and long. Their eyes are black. But when they are at their work they become dogs, wolves, for they are hounds of death, and also hounds of joy. They take the strands of life in their jaws, and sometimes they are careful with their jagged teeth, and sometimes they are not. They gallop around a great monolith, the stone that pierces our Sphere where the meridians meet, that turns the Earth and pins it in place in the world. It is called the Spindle of Necessity, and all round it the wolves of fate run, and run, and run, and the patterns of their winding are the patterns of the world. Nothing can occur without them, but they take no sides. I could also say that there is such a stone, such a place, but the dogs who are women died long ago, and left the strands to fall, and we have been helpless ever since. That in a wolfless world we must find our own way. That is more comforting to me. I want my own way, I want to falter; I want to fail, and I want to be redeemed. All these things I want to spool out from the spindle that is me, not the spindle of the world. But I have heard both tales.

I wish we taught the modern generation the true meaning of "love" and the human race. The love for all people regardless of their religion, race, culture or Political beliefs.The love of justice in the face of injustice.The love of wisdom in the face of ignorance, the love of country in the midst of unpatriotic beings and the love of self in the face of wanna be's.I wish we showed them that racism is not something that "Human Beings" should accept or brand. I hope we teach them that character matters more than race. I wish we taught them that "Islam" is not the biggest problem that America faces and vengeance, itself, is harm!In this time of divides, we have seen what the media can do. It has the power to uplift and break a candidate. In this uncertain times, we must be courageous as Americans and stand for what's right, not what the media think is.In this time, President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders or Donald J. Trump will not and can not change this country. It will take you, as an American to liberate your minds from "HATE", racial divides, injustice, and discrimination. It will take you as an American to rethink Islam, Health Care issues, Free Education for all, Unemployment, Environment and Climate Change, Obesity, Foreign Relations, Illegal Immigration, Equality Between Men and Women, and Individual Liberty vs. Government Control#Movebeyonddisparities.