Antidote for anguish

Believing that we are always doing the best we can, whether we intend to or not, and whether we like it or not, has turned out to be my antidote for anguish. It's my comforting but unverifiable beliefs I no longer think that I bear sole responsibility for who I am, what I do, or what I become. I share responsibility for those things with something infinitely larger than my conscious self—a higher power, which I call nature, although I don't have any objection if you prefer to call it God on my behalf. The experience of human freedom and responsibility loses some of its terrifying significance when it is placed in a larger context.

Mark Salzman, Man in the Empty Boat (New York: Open Road, 2012), ch. 23 (Kindle location 1981)

Lucky dog finds an indulgent home

Lucky indeed is the mud-soaked, half-starved, three-legged, blind, diabetic stray who wanders within sight of a Yu, because that dog will be a stray no longer. It will henceforth be a dog with a name and a homes and it will be happy—but it will not receive much in the way of training. He's happy and that's all that matters. If he doesn't feel like sitting or staying, or if he doesn't feel like resisting the impulse to bark, well, he's just a dog being a dog. What's the big deal? 

Mark Salzman, Man in the Empty Boat (New York: Open Road, 2012), ch. 12 (Kindle location 861)

Education as spanking machine

[E]ducation in general often seemed to me to be like a giant spanking machine. You crawled your way through it simply to prove that you could make it through; at the end, you got your diploma and your life could finally begin.

Mark Salzman, Man in the Empty Boat (New York: Open Road, 2012), ch. 6 (Kindle location 299)