If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than we have ever known. And it is the whole effort of the typically modern person to escape from the street in which he lives. First he invents modern hygiene and goes to Margate. Then he invents modern culture and goes to Florence. Then he invents modern imperialism and goes to Timbuctoo. He goes to the fantastic borders of the earth. He pretends to shoot tigers. He almost rides on a camel. And in all this he is still essentially fleeing from the street in which he was born; and of this flight he is always ready with his own explanation. He says he is fleeing from his street because it is dull; he is lying. He is really fleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. It is exciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive. He can visit Venice because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; the people in his own street are men. He can stare at the Chinese because for him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; if he stares at the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. He is forced to flee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his equals — of free men, perverse, personal, deliberately different from himself. The street in Brixton is too glowing and overpowering. He has to soothe and quiet himself among tigers and vultures, camels and crocodiles. These creatures are indeed very different from himself. But they do not put their shape or colour or custom into a decisive intellectual competition with his own. They do not seek to destroy his principles and assert their own; the stranger monsters of the suburban street do seek to do this. The camel does not contort his features into a fine sneer because Mr. Robinson has not got a hump; the cultured gentleman at No. 5 does exhibit a sneer because Robinson has not got a dado. The vulture will not roar with laughter because a man does not fly; but the major at No. 9 will roar with laughter because a man does not smoke. The complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours is that they will not, as we express it, mind their own business. We do not really mean that they will not mind their own business. If our neighbours did not mind their own business they would be asked abruptly for their rent, and would rapidly cease to be our neighbours. What we really mean when we say that they cannot mind their own business is something much deeper. We do not dislike them because they have so little force and fire that they cannot be interested in themselves. We dislike them because they have so much force and fire that they can be interested in us as well. What we dread about our neighbours, in short, is not the narrowness of their horizon, but their superb tendency to broaden it. And all aversions to ordinary humanity have this general character. They are not aversions to its feebleness (as is pretended), but to its energy. The misanthropes pretend that they despise humanity for its weakness. As a matter of fact, they hate it for its strength.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825182)

And, really, community is where is it at.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825284)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825324)

The internet. The internet is the new reality(Chesterton did not speak to this). If I want -- and most people want -- I don't ever have to talk to someone with views different then mine ever again. I can just exist in the internet echo chamber. But is that living? Living is living -- visiting neighbors, going to the local pub, arguing about local politics, sports, etc. But that is HARD. Real life is hard.

I don't know -- obviously I could write about this for a while -- but we are all becoming rootless cosmos.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825391)

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825807)

This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. . . . I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

--thomas merton.

in the same camp as chesterton.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825300)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825352)

But they're pressured to marry young, which is probably best for long term. Low divorce rate. Less shrews

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825154)

for me it is impulsive and due to OCD

i was stuffed and then saw a wendys ad and started craving wendys. more i tried to resist, the more i wanted it and had to go to wendys

obviously it was salty as fck and wanted something sweet so ate icecream at 1. i literally couldnt fckng move after that ljl

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825114)

full chesterton piece

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3130013&forum_id=2#29825329)