An intimate first book of personal essays and incisive commentary from the editor of Poetry.

Anger is one of three self-destructing states of mind; the other two are worldly love and delusion. Bhagavan Das posits Anger in the mid-point of the not-Self continuum: Hate towards Equals gives rise to Anger; towards Superiors, to Fear; towards Inferiors, to Scorn. Anger is the passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. Socrates defines Anger as raging and seething of the soul. Aristotle, as boiling of the blood around the heart. Plato suggests that though pain, fear, anger, and other feelings are given to men by necessity, “if they conquered these they would live righteously, and if they were conquered by them, unrighteously.” In order to help men, the Gods protected the heart by surrounding it with the soft and cool thicket of lungs to chill out the heat of anger. “Dig not fire with a sword but by governing the tongue and being quiet, friendship is produced from strife, the fire of anger being extinguished, and you yourself will not appear to be destitute of intellect,” advises Pythagoras. If Love is the fever of the species, Anger is the self-consuming fire. Indeed it is life atoms that a man in a blind passion throws off, unconsciously, and he does it quite as effectively as a mesmeriser who transfers them from himself to any object consciously and under the guidance of his will. Anger is an insurmountable obstacle between reality and illusion. That is why abstinence from Anger is one of Duty’s ten virtues. “Act then, all ye who fail and suffer, act like him; and from the stronghold of your Soul, chase all your foes away — ambition, anger, hatred, e’en to the shadow of desire — when even you have failed” says the Voice of the Silence. To take the Kingdom of God by violence is Kabbalistic parlance for reaching Nirvana by artificially-induced conditions. To Dare, to Will, to Achieve, and to keep Silent, is the motto of the true Occultist. “The science of the gods is mastered by violence; it must be conquered, and does not give itself.” One key is the sacrifice of Prometheus who, by allowing men to proceed consciously on the path of spiritual evolution, transformed the most perfect of animals on earth into a potential god, making him free to “take the kingdom of heaven by violence.” We cannot attain Adeptship and Nirvana, Bliss and the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we link ourselves indissolubly with our Rex Lucis, the Lord of Splendour and of Light, our immortal God within us.

Founded in 1851 as a four-cabin outpost named "New York Pretty-Soon," Seattle has long struggled with an identity crisis. From a nearly lawless port, to a sedate, conventional company town defined by Boeing Aircraft, to an accessible paradise for artists and recovering urbanites, Seattle repeatedly tried and failed to become bigger, wealthier, more like "major league" cities. In the late 1980s, Seattle's time suddenly arrived. Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks, McCaw Cellular/AT&T Wireless, and dozens of local dot.com startups began to drive a booming national economy. Seattle became a city of instant millionaires and brand name shopping, skyscrapers and sports franchises-- the place everyone wanted to visit, topping lists of America's "most desirable" cities. But with such wealth came consequences: overdevelopment, paralyzing traffic, racial and class divisions, and a street population of teenagers discarded by the new culture, whose rage and disaffection fueled the rise of bands such as Nirvana. Striving to reach its ambitions, Seattle seemed to be losing the struggle for its soul. And when it hosted the 1999 World Trade Organization convention, the city's conflicted personalities clashed, as violent riots by residents and a coalition of protestors left the downtown decimated and the nation transfixed by the spectacle of globalization gone wrong. In Seattle and the Demons of Ambition, Fred Moody uses his own background as a native son, along with wide-ranging encounters with others, to trace the growing pains of the city he loves. Profiling Bill Gates and never-quite-champion football coach Chuck Knox, a pair of ambitious entrepreneurs and a homeless sculptor once profiled in the New Yorker, grunge music superstars and the preyed-upon children of the documentary "Streetwise," Moody offers a dramatic, entertaining, and insightful portrait of the city that defined economic and technological change in the America of the 1990s.

Mark Twain relates the boyhood experiences on the Mississippi that led to his ambition to be a river-boat pilot.

‘An excellent contribution to our knowledge of Iran and Soleimani.’ Kim Ghattas, author of Black Wave When the US assassinated Qassem Soleimani, he was one of the most powerful men in Iran. Known as ‘the shadow commander’, he enacted the wishes of the country’s Supreme Leader across the Middle East, establishing the Islamic Republic as a major force in the region. But all this was a long way from where he began – on the margins of a nation whose ruler was seen as a friend of the West. Through Soleimani, Arash Azizi examines how Iran came to be where it is today. Providing a rare insight into a country whose actions are often discussed but seldom understood, he reveals the global ambitions underlying Iran’s proxy wars, geopolitics and nuclear programme.

The author offers exploration of self and practical guidance dealing with the dark side of personality based on Jung's concept of "shadow," or the forbidden and unacceptable feelings and behaviors each of us experience.

Looks at how ambition, once considered a vice, became a celebrated virtue that defines American character.