Juliana Philippa > Books: 0-audiobook‎ (32)

We all suffer, and we all triumph, and we all get to choose how we hold both.

We all suffer, and we all triumph, and we all get to choose how we hold both.

I belong. Here. In myself. In this house. On this planet. I'm in my mid-50s now, I've outlived both of my parents, I know that what I walked through was a lot, especially coming from where I came from. The truth is, the only way out is in.

Things happen in life to get our attention, to make us wake up. What does it say that I had to lose so much before I had to break down enough to rebuild? I think it says that the thing that got me here—this incredible toughness—was almost the thing that did me in. I got to a place where I could no longer just muscle through; I could either bend, or break.

I got here because I needed all of this to become who I am now. I had been holding on to so many misconceptions about myself all my life: that I wasn't valuable, that I didn't deserve to be anywhere good, whether that meant in a loving relationship on my own terms, or in a great film with actors I respected who knew what they were doing. The narrative I believed was that I was unworthy and contaminated. And it wasn't true.

There are two reasons I wanted to tell this story, the story of how I learned to surrender. First, because it's mine. It doesn't belong to the tabloids, or my mom, or the men I've married, or the people who've loved or hated my movies, or even my children. My story is mine alone. I'm the only one who was there for all of it, and I decided to claim the power to tell it on my own terms. The second reason is that even though it's mine, maybe some part of this story is yours too. I've had extraordinary luck in this life, both bad and good. Putting it all down in writing makes me realize how crazy a lot of it has been, how improbable. But we all suffer and we all triumph and we all get to choose how we hold both.

Up until the twentieth century only the African continent was left behind by development because the slave trade and cruel colonial control had stolen away the most valuable resource of all—its people.

"Humans can't understand that they and other races are the same species. They distinguish themselves by skin color, nationality, religion—even by narrow groupings such as geographical region and family—and see these as their defining features. Individuals from different groups are viewed with hostility, as if they were a different species. This isn't a rational decision but a biological characteristic. The human brain inherently distinguishes different beings and views them as a danger. To me this is proof enough of humans' cruelty."

Rubens could understand Heisman's point. "In other words this behavior is preserved in the species because it aids survival. Conversely, if a person isn't on his guard against another race, then he'll be killed by that other race."

"True. It's the same logic as when a type of animal that isn't afraid of snakes is then bitten by poisonous snakes, and its numbers decrease. The result is that individuals who are afraid of snakes will survive in greater numbers, and most of their descendants will have an instinctive fear of snakes."

"But don't we also have a desire for peace?"

"It's much easier to call for world peace than it is to get along with one's neighbor," Heisman replied sarcastically. "Look, war is just another form of cannibalism. Humans use their intelligence to try to hide their instinct for cannibalism. They mix in various kinds of sophistry to justify it—politics, religion, ideology, patriotism—but deep down they have the same desires as animals. People killing other people to defend their territory and chimpanzees going crazy and becoming violent when their domain is invaded—how are these any different?"

"Then how do you account for altruistic acts? Some people do what we'd consider unselfish good deeds." As he said this Rubens pictured a seedy-looking Japanese—Kento Koga, whose photo was attached to the report by the DIA. That young man, unappealing and obviously unattractive to women—why would he continue developing a new drug even though he knew it put him in grave danger?

"I'm not denying that people also have a good side. But good deeds are seen as virtuous precisely because they run counter to human nature. If these were biologically normal acts, we wouldn't praise them. The only way people can show how good their country is is by not killing people from other countries. But human beings today can't even do that."

Rubens knew his debate skills might not be enough to refute Heisman's deep-seated distrust of humans. Heisman might even be hoping that his report would come true, that mankind would be wiped out.

"I'm sorry, but I can't cooperate with the Pentagon's operation. If a new type of human being has appeared, I see it as cause for celebration. Modern men are pitiful beings that have spent most of the last two hundred thousand years killing each other. This situation, in which humans can only coexist by threatening each other with weapons of mass destruction, shows the limits of human morality. It's time we hand over the planet to the next generation of beings."
[...]
Rubens cursed the fragility of human peace. Why, he thought, do we have to live in constant fear of humans killing each other? This anxiety has never let up, from the time when human beings first appeared to the present, an unbroken chain of two hundred thousand long years. The sole enemy human beings have is their own species—other humans. (p.351-354)

Most people think acting is make-believe. Like it’s a big game where people put on costumes and feign kisses or stab wounds and then pretend to gasp and die. They think it’s a show. They don’t understand that acting is becoming someone else, changing your thoughts and needs until you don’t remember your own anymore. You let the other person invade everything you are and then you turn yourself inside out, spilling their identity onto the stage like a kind of bloodletting. Sometimes I think acting is a disease, but I can’t say for sure because I don’t know what it’s like to be healthy.
[...]
You knew you were playing it right when your audience was happy. They smiled and praised you and told each other how wonderful you were. Maybe part of you wish they’d see past the act, even once, and tell you Bridge Jones-style that they liked you just for who you were, but that never happened. No one wanted to go see independent movies with you. They laughed at the books you were reading and thought you were snobby because of the way you talked. So you put on the show, waiting for your real life to begin someday. And the applause made things inside of you warm that you hadn’t even known needed to be warmed up. The real you might be so much colder. So you kept doing it.

I’d acted my entire life and so far it’d only gotten me here, to the first day fo senior year at Pine Valley High School.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don't. People who have a scream are to

I think there are two types of people. Ones who have a scream inside them and ones who don't. People who have a scream are too angry or too sad or laugh too hard, swear too much, use drugs or never sit still. Sometimes they sing at the top of their lungs with the windows rolled down. I don't think people are born with it. I think other people put it inside you with the things they do to you, and say to you, or the things you see them do or say to other people. And I don't think you can get rid of it. If you don't have a scream, you can't understand.