Nothing Really Ever Happens Like You Imagine

When Did We See Each Other Face-to-face? Not Until You Saw Into My Cracks And I Saw Into Yours. Before That, We Were Just Looking At Ideas Of Each Other, Like Looking At Your Window Shade But Never Seeing Inside. But Once The Vessel Cracks, The Light Can Get In. The Light Can Get Out.

Gus: "it Tastes Like..." Me: "food." Gus: "yes, Precisely. It Tastes Like Food, Excellently Prepared. But It Does Not Taste, How Do I Put This Delicately...?" Me: "it Does Not Taste Like God Himself Cooked Heaven Into A Series Of Five Dishes Which Were Then Served To You Accompanied By Several Luminous Balls Of Fermented, Bubbly Plasma While Actual And Literal Flower Petals Floated Down Around Your Canal-side Dinner Table." Gus: "nicely Phrased." Gus's Father: "our Children Are Weird." My Dad: "nicely Phrased."

Because It's Kind Of Great, Being An Idea That Everybody Likes. But I Could Never Be The Idea To Myself, Not All The Way. And Agloe Is A Place Where A Paper Creation Became Real. A Dot On The Map Became A Real Place, More Real Than The People Who Created The Dot Could Never Have Imagined. I Thought Maybe The Paper Cutout Of A Girl Could Start Becoming Real Here Also. And It Seemed Like A Way To Tell That Paper Girl Who Cared About Popularity And Clothes And Everything Else: 'you Are Going To The Paper Towns. And You Are Never Coming Back.

Study Broadly And Without Fear.

All Of Us, Poor & Rich Alike, Have Been Conditioned By Our Upbringings. Impoverished Men & Women May Become Lulled Into A State Of "learned Helplessness" Without Hope To Change Their Lives. Likewise, The Wealthy Can Walk In A State Of "learned Blindness" Ignoring The Desperation Of The Local & Global Poor.