"In bullfighting there’s a place in the ring where the bull feels safe. If he can reach this place he can stop running and gather his full strength. He’s no longer afraid. From the point of view of the matador he becomes dangerous. This place in the ring is different for every bull. It is the job of the matador to make sure the bull does not have time to occupy this place of wholeness"

Duke Mu of Chin said to Po Lo: "You are now advanced in years. Is there any member of your family whom I could employ to look for horses in your stead?"

Po Lo replied: "A good horse can be picked out by its general build and appearance. But the superlative horse-- one that raises no dust and leaves no tracks -- is something evanescent and fleeting, elusive as thin air. The talents of my sons lie on a lower plane altogether; they can tell a good horse when they see one, but they cannot tell a superlative horse. I have a friend, however, one Chiu-fang Kao, a hawker of fuel and vegetables, who in things appertaining to horses is nowise my inferior. Pray see him."

What then is meaning? It's a personal reason for our existence. It's a reason to get out of bed in the morning. It is not a matter of searching for some ethereal, profound, and mysterious meaning, but merely of choosing what to dedicate our life to, for the purpose of life is to live a life of purpose. In other words, the meaning of life is to live a meaningful life. We create ourselves with the power of thought, and we create our meaning with the power of choice.

The  great Jewish theologian of the twentieth century, Abraham Joshua Heschel once put it this way:

"The grand premise of religion is that (human beings are) able to surpass (themselves), that is, we are able to 'lift our eyes and see' beyond the horizon of the mind, that we are able to see not just what is there but also that which 'what is there' suggests, what it represents, what it points to that is real beyond itself." 

Chris was traveling in Kenya and, as usual, was shopping. In the Masai Mara, there are no malls. Instead, shopping is done predominantly in the open marketplaces. Of course, being a typical female, she immediately gravitated to the jewelry stalls.

"I don't think art should give answers. I think art should only pose questions. And art should not fill in blanks for people, or I think that's what's called propaganda. I think art should only raise questions, a lot of which may be even dissonant and you don't even know you're being asked a question, but that it creates some kind of tension inside you."
--David Chase, creator of "The Sopranos"

From Newsweek:
The Sopranos' Pauli Gualtieri (aka Paulie Walnuts) put his cigar-like index finger on the director, David Chase's, ultimate goal in dropping another plot line that will dangle forever: the fate of a Russian mobster who escaped a whacking. "He just wanted the audience to suffer," he said.