status-quo

Something must be radically wrong with a culture and a civilisation when its youth begins to desert it. Youth is the natural time for revolt, for experiment, for a generous idealism that is eager for action. Any civilisation which has the wisdom of self-preservation will allow a certain margin of freedom for the expression of this youthful mood. But the plain, unpalatable fact is that in America today that margin of freedom has been reduced to the vanishing point. Rebellious youth is not wanted here. In our environment there is nothing to challenge our young men; there is no flexibility, no colour, no possibility for adventure, no chance to shape events more generously than is permitted under the rules of highly organised looting. All our institutional life combines for the common purpose of blackjacking our youth into the acceptance of the status quo; and not acceptance of it merely, but rather its glorification.

Venice was a contrast from Los Angeles itself, where you might see a woman with $15,000 tits, a face frozen in place by Botox, wobbling with her $4,000 Gucci bag right past a child with a sunken belly and exposed ribs encaging a heart too weak to scream.

Excellence is to keep beating your own standards every day. If you don't have a standard for yourself, you have no records to beat; and if you don't have any record to beat, you can't excel. What is your current standard?

Make a change of your steps when necessary. __tatus quo_ is the court room where change is kept on trial for long, delaying the verdict. Make a change and achieve your dreams. Rule your case with victory.

Break away from the box confining you. Positive dreamers do not follow the status quo. They keep raising the standard of the bar higher and higher. Raise the bar.

We are all bounded with each other on the basis of our beliefs and values; when we question those values, we are certainly left alone, away from our families, friends and the dear one. And that is a cost benefit analysis we all make and we keep satisfying ourselves with the status quo of situations.

It is easy, and therefore uninspiring, to love within the norms of acceptance and society. Other than ones own heart, there is no great risk involved; it's all very status quo. The same is tired, but what's outside-the-norm is captivating and gets under people__ skin, pushing their buttons, making them think and revealing their depth as a person, or their lack thereof. It's love against obstacles that inspires the most _ a love that faces and ultimately endures through challenges, hardship and ridicule that is courageous and triumphant.

What people resist is not change per se, but loss.

The times on the open road with all the unknown ahead were the times I was happiest and most secure, with people who knew our core and lived solely for the purpose of unmediated experiences and love, from which purpose itself is born. Not the distant idea of life, love and purpose dirtied by constructs.

The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo.

You know that you__e truly successful when you can afford to fail.

Abilene possessed greater vision, perhaps because it possessed little else.

All genuinely creative ideas are initially met with rejection, since they necessarily threaten the status quo. An enthusiastic reception for a new idea is a sure sign that it is not original.

Life expects us to challenge the status-quo YET it holds us responsible for ONLY what we can ordinarily do. Life doesn't ask us for too much; it says "to do more, expand your lens". Expand your skills, expand your tools, expand your mind. To do more, be more!

She's no longer afraid to die. What she's afraid of is living, accepting the status quo.

The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.

Often I didn__ think I was cut out for the way the world is, being born into a common culture and system I would never choose for myself.

Moreover, we were to each other aspects of a dream unrealized. I emblemized the excitement of freedom, a life untethered by the confines of constructs. She illustrated a sense of belonging, of ongoing laughter in the face of those constructs, a true lifeline within the walking dead. We were standing in different places, yet the same, seeing within each other a sense of truth within the lies, a radiant light that illuminated the dark.