“Amaze yourself at your own daring.” ~ Lawrence Olivier

“Amaze yourself at your own daring.”

~ Lawrence Olivier

Desire Paths

Open road

By Melissa Kirsch

After a blizzard in New York City, a pedestrian accustomed to crossing the street mid-block may find herself barricaded in, banks of plowed snow creating a fortress, forcing her to walk the length of the shoveled sidewalk to the crosswalk, as the urban planners intended. Follow the grid, same as everyone else, no shortcuts.

That is, unless someone has, mercifully, carved an incursion into the snow bank, creating a makeshift means of egress, a way out. These unofficial trails that permit deviation from the prescribed route are known as "desire paths." Desire paths (or, sometimes, "desire lines") show up after snowstorms, as my colleagues Anna Kodé and Amir Hamja documented this week, but you can find them anywhere humans have decided the official trail is too indirect: 

Those dirt trails that branch off paved walkways in parks, offering a shorter route from A to B, are desire paths, too. Has there ever been a more romantic name for a traffic pattern? . . .

The word desire has an ache in it. That's why its application to a trail deviating from a snowy sidewalk is so affecting — it's not just that I'd prefer to walk some other way, but I have a deep longing for another way. Imagine the planning commission meeting in which bureaucrats discuss desire paths in between more mundane-sounding plans for rezoning the waterfront and building a bus stop. Desire is so tender, so intimate, so individual. . . .

As the snow melts in the city and the physical desire paths go with it, I'm considering the simmering desire, mine and others', to make new, metaphorical paths, to cut lines through drifts that are walling us in, to create new ways out when the old ones no longer suffice.

From: The New York Times <nytdirect@nytimes.com>   (email)
Date: Sat, Feb 14, 2026 at 6:02 AM
Subject: The Morning: Desire paths

Reinhold Niebuhr - Hope, Faith, Love & Forgiveness

"Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."

~ Reinhold Niebuhr

(boldface added by blogger)

Reinhold Niebuhr Quotes

 Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

Reinhold Niebuhr (2010). "The Irony of American History", p.63, University of Chicago Press

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it; trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His Will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him forever in the next. Amen.

"Serenity Prayer". Prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr, www.beliefnet.com. 1951.

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. Grant me the patience with changes that take time, appreciation of all that I have, tolerance of those with different struggles, and the strength to get up and try again, one day at a time.

Reinhold Niebuhr

There was a time when I had all the answers. My real growth began when I discovered that the questions to which I had the answers were not the important questions.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness foreword (1944)

  

Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.

Reinhold Niebuhr

  

It's always wise to seek the truth in our opponents' error, and the error in our own truth.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Every experience proves that the real problem of our existence lies in the fact that we ought to love one another, but do not.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Nationalism: One of the effective ways in which the modern man escapes life's ethical problems.

Reinhold Niebuhr

The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control. Since it is impossible to count on enough moral goodwill among those who possess irresponsible power to sacrifice it for the good of the whole, it must be destroyed by coercive methods and these will always run the peril of introducing new forms of injustice in place of those abolished.

Reinhold Niebuhr (2013). "Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics", p.21, Westminster John Knox Press

Religion is so frequently a source of confusion in political life, and so frequently dangerous to democracy, precisely because it introduces absolutes into the realm of relative values.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Toleration of people who differ in convictions and habits requires a residual awareness of the complexity of truth and the possibility of opposing view having some light on one or the other facet of a many-sided truth.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Humor is a prelude to faith and laughter is the beginning of prayer.

Reinhold Niebuhr, (2013). "Discerning the Signs of the Times - Sermons for Today and Tomorrow", p.72, Read Books Ltd

  

The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Rationalism belongs to the cool observer. But because of the stupidity of the average person, they follow not reason, but faith. This naïve faith requires necessary illusions and emotionally potent oversimplifications, which are provided by the myth maker to keep the ordinary person on course.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Since inequalities of privilege are greater than could possibly be defended rationally, the intelligence of privileged groups is usually applied to the task of inventing specious proofs for the theory that universal values spring from, and that general interests are served by, the special privileges which they hold.

Reinhold Niebuhr (2013). "Moral Man and Immoral Society: A Study in Ethics and Politics", p.117, Westminster John Knox Press

If you equate God's judgment with your judgment, you have a wrong religion.

Reinhold Niebuhr

Source: www.hrc.utexas.edu

  

My personal attitude toward atheists is the same attitude that I have toward Christians, and would be governed by a very orthodox text: "By their fruits shall ye know them." I wouldn't judge a man by the presuppositions of his life, but only by the fruits of his life. And the fruits - the relevant fruits - are, I'd say, a sense of charity, a sense of proportion, a sense of justice. And whether the man is an atheist or a Christian, I would judge him by his fruits, and I have therefore many agnostic friends.

Reinhold Niebuhr

"The Mike Wallace Interview". www.hrc.utexas.edu. April 27, 1958.

  

The chief source of man's inhumanity to man seems to be the tribal limits of his sense of obligation to other men.

Reinhold Niebuhr (2012). "Man's Nature and His Communities: Essays on the Dynamics and Enigmas of Man's Personal and Social Existence", p.84, Wipf and Stock Publishers

  

Life has no meaning except in terms of responsibility.

Reinhold Niebuhr (1974). "Justice and Mercy"

  

Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure.

Reinhold Niebuhr

The cross symbolizes a cosmic as well as historic truth. Love conquers the world, but its victory is not an easy one.

Reinhold Niebuhr (2015). "Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic: A Library of America eBook Classic", p.91, Library of America

Love is the motive, but justice is the instrument.

Reinhold Niebuhr

"Grief is the price we pay for love​."

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

Queen Elizabeth II, addressing bereaved families following the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Queen Elizabeth II on Religious Intolerance

quotes:

In her Christmas broadcast of 2004, the Queen addressed the theme of religious intolerance and spoke about her own faith in Christianity, including the important lessons that can be learned from the Good Samaritan parable. 

She said: "It is a timeless story of a victim of a mugging who was ignored by his own countrymen but helped by a foreigner - and a despised foreigner at that. The implication drawn by Jesus is clear. Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour. The need to look after a fellow human being is far more important than any cultural or religious differences."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/queen-elizabeth-ii-s-greatest-quotes-including-her-witty-joke-that-left-world-leaders-speechless/ar-AA1VvZlz  as of 2/5/2026

‘All It Is Is Pain’: The Olympian Testing the Limits of Endurance

 'All It Is Is Pain': The Olympian Testing the Limits of Endurance

Jessie Diggins has become the best-ever American cross-country skier because of what she pushes her body through.

By Reid Forgrave, Feb. 5, 2026, The New York Times Magazine

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/magazine/jessie-diggins-ski-winter-olympics-milan.html as of 2/5/2026

Quotes:

"She's one of the best at getting exhausted, and one of the best at continuing after she's exhausted."

Diggins discovered this superpower at 15, when as a freshman she was anchoring the final leg of a high school relay. Her teammates told her that she had to beat a particular skier from a rival high school who would be wearing a green race suit. . . . and Diggins was overwhelmed at seeing some 20 skiers wearing the same green race suit.

Pushing herself in a way she had never done before, she passed all 20 skiers from the rival team, then collapsed at the finish thinking she was going to die.

"Then, 30 seconds later, it was, Oh — I'm not going to die," Diggins recalls. "It was a huge lightbulb. This whole next level had been there the whole time, and I can access it if I am willing to push that hard. All it is is pain. It's not permanent damage. I want to know what my true potential is. I never want to wonder, What if I had just been a little tougher mentally?"

Improved Government?

 Improved Government?

"Chief Two Eagles," a government official began, "you have observed the white man for many generations, you have seen his wars and his products, you have seen all his progress, and all his problems."

The chief nodded.

The official continued, "Considering recent events, in your opinion, where has the white man gone wrong?"

The chief stared at the government official for over a minute, and then calmly replied, "When white man found this land, Indians were running it. No taxes. No debt. Plenty buffalo. Plenty beaver. Women did most of the work. Medicine man free. Indian men hunted and fished all the time." 

The chief smiled, and added quietly, "White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that."

The Goodness of God

Quote

"By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness—the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What does it matter so long as they are contented?' We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say, 'liked to see young people enjoying themselves', and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, 'a good time was had by all'. Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction."
—from The Problem of Pain"

― C.S. Lewis, A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works

“everyone will have always been against this.”

On Oct 25th, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: "One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." This tweet was viewed over 10 million times. 

Playing Golf During a War

Bush's comment about war and golf go viral as Trump seen at Palm Beach club

Newsweek, story by Alice Gibbs 3/16/2026, 

quote:

A statement that former President George W. Bush made about playing golf during wartime has resurfaced online after being reshared on X by an account dedicated to archiving moments from his presidency. . . .

In the post shared on X, @TheBushArchive quoted Bush as saying that he stopped playing golf after the invasion of Iraq because he did not want “some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander‑in‑chief playing golf.”

Bush made the comments in a 2008 interview with Politico, in which he explained that he gave up the pastime following the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad that killed several people, including the UN’s top envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello. 

Bush said he was informed of the attack while he was playing golf in Texas and decided afterward that continuing to play during the war would send the wrong signal. He added that he felt he owed military families a sense of solidarity during the conflict.

Criticism grows around Trump’s golf outings. Beyond optics, the president’s golf trips have also drawn scrutiny over cost. A 2019 U.S. Government Accountability Office report estimated that each presidential golf trip costs taxpayers approximately $1.4 million, factoring in travel, staffing and security expenses.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bush-s-comment-about-war-and-golf-go-viral-as-trump-seen-at-palm-beach-club/ar-AA1YKON9  as of 3/16/2026

Empathy on the M14 Bus

Empathy on the M14 Bus

When Quinton Miller’s M14 bus pulled up to a bus shelter in downtown Manhattan one recent morning, he said “Good morning!” to each passenger with a smile. As they exited, he told them to have a wonderful day.

Half the people didn’t respond, but that never bothers Mr. Miller, a bus operator for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for five years. “They might have had a bad day at work or school,” he told me. “They might be worried about someone.”

Mr. Miller manages the complex, nerve-jangling choreography of driving a city bus — which I saw as I joined him on his morning route — yet he still makes the extra effort to connect with his riders. Out of over 12,000 M.T.A. bus operators, the authority said he received the most appreciative comments from riders in 2024 and was in the top three last year.

How does he do it? He makes a “series of choices” to stay positive, he said, even when situations try him. If he’s on his break and it’s cold out, he lets riders wait inside the “nice warm bus” instead of at the bus stop. If he sees his usual airport workers running for the bus, he waits, because it will be 30 minutes until the next one.

His kindness works in both directions: Riders get to work on time, and Mr. Miller feels satisfaction for helping them. This squares with what studies have found. Empathy humanizes others — and it’s associated with higher levels of well-being.

“My philosophy is, you don’t want the job to change you,” Mr. Miller said. “You want to be able to change others on the job — by what you say and what you do.”

New York Times, Well email, "Well: Meet the human mood-lifters," March 5, 2026  (bold emphasis added by blogger)