To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget. The secret of the great stories is that they have no secrets. The great stories are the ones you have heard and want to heart again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't deceive you with thrills and trick ending. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the great stories you know who lives, who dies, and finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again. Change is one thing. acceptance is another. When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. that's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.