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2717202
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I thought it would be such a sick joke to have to remain to be alive for decades and not believe in or feel anything.
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Douglas Coupland |
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0a3bc56
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At what point in our lives do we stop blurring? When do we become crisp individuals? What must we do in order to end these fuzzy identities - to clarify just who it is we really are? -Richard
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identity
life
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Douglas Coupland |
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44cfd52
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I am a quiet man. I tend to think things through and try not to say too much. But here I am, saying perhaps too much. But there are these feelings inside me which need badly to escape, I guess. And this makes me feel relieved because one of my big concerns these past few years is that I've been losing my ability to feel things with the same intensity- the way I felt when I was younger. It's scary- to feel your emotions floating away and jus..
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Douglas Coupland |
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bf2a685
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And then sometimes I think the people to feel saddest for are people who once knew what profoundness was, but who lost or became numb to the sensation of wonder - people who closed the doors that leads us into the secret world - or who had the doors closed for them by time and neglect and decisions made in times of weakness.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6143133
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Well, it's amazing what you can find in this world if you're willing to sleep with people.
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Douglas Coupland |
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4399590
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Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like quite a tragedy.
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Douglas Coupland |
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563f65d
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If I've learned anything in twenty-nine years, it's that every human being you see in the course of a day has a problem that's sucking up at least 70 percent of his or her radar. My gift - bad choice of words - is that I can look at you, him, her, them, whoever, and tell right away what is keeping them awake at night: money; feelings of insignificance; overwhelming boredom; evil children; job troubles; or perhaps death, in one of its many c..
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Douglas Coupland |
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ef58f1d
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It's around midnight. After I left Dad, my choice was to either become very drunk or write this. I chose to write this. It felt kind of now-or-never for me.
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Douglas Coupland |
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a8bec92
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You know, I really think that when God puts together families, he sticks his finger into the white pages and selects a group of people at random and then says to them all, 'Hey! You're going to spend the next seventy years together, even though you have nothing in common and don't even like each other. And, should you not feel yourself caring about any of this group of strangers, even for a second, you will just feel dreadful
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Douglas Coupland |
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49b9045
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Inasmuch as I am a spiritual man, I do believe in God - I think that He created an order for the world; I believe that, in constantly bombarding Him with requests for miracles, we're also asking that He unravel the fabric of the world. A world of continuous miracles would be a cartoon, not a world.
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world
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Douglas Coupland |
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277cb29
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With the first drink comes the truth, with the second drink comes wishful thinking, and with the third drink come the lies.
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Douglas Coupland |
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0940d91
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Life always wins.
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Douglas Coupland |
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ca44883
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Jason said, "Yes. Gerard T. Giraffe." What does the 'T' stand for?" 'The."
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Douglas Coupland |
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f0580ff
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When you grow older a dreadful, horrible sensation will come over you. It's called loneliness, and you think you know what it is now, but you don't. Here is a list of the symptoms, and don't worry-loneliness is the most universal sensation on the planet. Just remember one fact-loneliness will pass. You will survive and you will be a better human for it.
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Douglas Coupland |
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3db6d4c
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The best part of my life is gone, and what remains is whizzing past so quickly I feel like I'm Krazy-Glue'ed onto a mechanical bull of a time machine.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6e3c38a
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My arm draped her shoulder; we both felt safe, as if we were a complete solar system unto ourselves, dangling in the sky, warm heated planets inside a universe of stars. -Richard
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happiness
inspiration
love
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Douglas Coupland |
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5cbae49
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For there was once a time when we expected the worst. But then the worst happened, did it not? And so we will never be surprised ever again.
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Douglas Coupland |
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91d6e7b
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The modern world is devoted to vanishing species, vanishing weather and vanishing capacity for wonder.
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Douglas Coupland |
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e20bbf0
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It is indeed a mistake to confuse children with angels
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children
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Douglas Coupland |
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4091d34
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Maybe people with weird haircuts are like structures that become interesting only after being wrecked - Florida ranch houses half-fallen into sinkholes; bankrupt malls; civilizations after a nuclear war. I feel a warm tragic glow knowing I may be of interest to the world only once I have been destroyed.
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Douglas Coupland |
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1b2d7db
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Time, Baby - so much, so much time left until the end of my life - sometimes I go crazy at how slowly time passes yet how quickly my body ages. But I shouldn't allow myself to think like this. I have to remind myself that time only frightens me when I think of having to spend it alone. Sometimes I scare myself with how many of my thoughts revolve around making me feel better about sleeping alone in a room.
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Douglas Coupland |
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8fb3f85
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Sometimes it feels as if everything in life is just something we haul into the grave.
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Douglas Coupland |
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99a188c
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We can no longer create the feeling of an era...of time being particular to one spot in time.
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Douglas Coupland |
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08c5b42
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Maybe the more emotions a person experiences in their daily lives, the longer time seems to feel to them. As you get older, you experience fewer new things, and so time seems to go by faster.
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time
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Douglas Coupland |
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859fac0
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Imagine you're a forty-year-old, Richard," Hamilton said to me around this time, while working as a salesman at a Radio Shack in Lynn Valley,"and suddenly somebody comes up to you saying, 'Hi, I'd like you to meet Kevin. Kevin is eighteen and will be making all of your career decisions for you.' I'd be flipped out. Wouldn't you? But that's what life is all about - some eighteen-year-old kid making your big decisions for you that stick for a..
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Douglas Coupland |
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3727998
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I have always liked the idea of Superman because I have always liked the idea that there is one person in the world who doesn't do bad things. And that there is one person in the world who is able to fly.
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Douglas Coupland |
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5d95e07
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What is human behavior, except trying to prove that we're not animals?
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Douglas Coupland |
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038e0e7
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Face it: You're always just a breath away from a job in telemarketing.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6e717cf
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You know, Dag and Claire smile a lot, as do many people I know. But I always wondered if there is something either mechanical or malignant to their smiles, for the way they keep their outer lips propped up seems a bit, not false, but protective. A minor realization hits me as I sit with the two of them. It is the realisation that the smiles that they wear in their daily lives are the same as the smiles worn by people who have been good-natu..
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nihilism
ruined-youth
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Douglas Coupland |
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a00ced6
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You guys just wait and see. We'll stand taller than these mountains. We'll bare open our hearts for the world to grab. We'll see lights where there was dimness. We'll testify together to what we have seen and felt. Life will go on--all of us--crawling; stumbling, falling perhaps. But we will be the strong ones. Our hearts will shine brightly.
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Douglas Coupland |
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0df1560
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How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we knit together this place we call the world? Without stories our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness. It's a village scraped raw by warm waters leaving not a trace of what existed before.
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dry-humor
humor
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Douglas Coupland |
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c3ffd8c
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I don't understand beauty.
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Douglas Coupland |
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6083911
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Unhappy endings are just as important as happy endings. They're an efficient way of transmitting vital Darwinian information. Your brain needs them to make maps of the world, maps that let you know what sorts of people and situations to avoid.
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Douglas Coupland |
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bb02f5f
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I sandpapered the roof of my mouth with 3 bowls of Cap'n Crunch - had raw gobbets of mouth-beef dangling onto my tongue all day
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Douglas Coupland |
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446bed3
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I think computers ought to have a key called I'M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours. I've got another one: a key called FUCK OFF. You press it every time your computer does something annoying -- in turn this would somehow force your computer to experience pain. And if you pushed SHIFT/FUCK OFF, you'd end up with FUCK OFF AND DIE, the computer equivalent of a razor being raked across your nipples..
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Douglas Coupland |
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133d987
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we're told by TV and Reader's Digest that a crisis will trigger massive personal change--and that those big changes will make the pain worthwhile. But from what he could see, big change almost never happens. People simply feel lost. They have no idea what to say or do or feel or think. they become messes and tend to remain messes.
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crisis
life
philosophy
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Douglas Coupland |
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263c4ef
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Society indeed conspires to keep you ball and chained.
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Douglas Coupland |
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3ce22ab
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I don't think human beings were meant to know so much about the world. All this time and all this exposure to every conceivable aspect of life - wisdom so rarely enters the picture. We barely have enough time to figure out who we are and then we become bitter and isolated as we age.
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Douglas Coupland |
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46fad52
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But then a bumblebee bumbled above us and it stole our attention the way flying things can.
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bumble-bee
flying
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Douglas Coupland |
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3a273c0
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Once he entered my life, I promptly forgot all my years of putting on a brave face while browsing at bookstores until closing time, and of having one, two, three beers while watching crime shows
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Douglas Coupland |
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c6e542d
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I think we're simply going to run out of Nature before we have a chance to destroy it.
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Douglas Coupland |
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62d15d6
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Do you remember that old TV series, Get Smart? Do you remember at the beginning where Maxwell Smart is walking down the secret corridor and there are all of those doors that open sideways, and upside down and gateways and stuff? I think that everyone keeps a whole bunch of doors just like this between themselves and the world. But when you're in love, all of your doors are open, and all of their doors are open. And you roller-skate down you..
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Douglas Coupland |
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e839e78
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I'm an adult. Discipline me and I'll bury you alive. - Roger
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Douglas Coupland |
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c519bb0
|
Here are some passing thoughts. Imagine looking up at the moon and seeing it burning. Imagine seeing the grocery store's checkout girl grow horns. Imagine growing younger instead of older. Imagine feeling more powerful and more capable of falling in love with life every new day instead of being scared and sick and not knowing whether to stay under a sheet or venture forth into the cold.
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Douglas Coupland |