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Quote by Bryan Oftedahl

“Without the pieces there can be no whole and without the whole the pieces have no place. What the hell does that mean? Did you know that it requires the time and effort of approximately 10,000 individuals to get the coffee from the plant to your coffee pot each and every morning? That's just your morning cup of coffee! Expand that outwards to all the other products you pick up from your grocery store, to the water, sewage, and power systems hooked up to your house. In order for you to maintain your lifestyle, it requires the efforts of millions of individuals you don't even know exist. Suddenly the concept of independence sounds kind of absurd! If you are special, it's not because of you as an individual, it's because of your compatibility within the whole. Become a source of dysfunction within the whole and suddenly your importance wanes, folks try to avoid you. This is the philosophy of sunyata which some refer to as the theory of emptiness but which I choose to think of as the theory of the pieces and the whole.”

Quote by Bryan Oftedahl

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Bryan Oftedahl

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“It's very much to be wished that some mothers would leave their daughters alone after marriage, and not be so violently affectionate. They seem to think that the only return that can be made them for bringing an unfortunate young woman into the world -- God bless my soul, if she asked to be brought, or wanted to come! -- is full liberty to worry her out of it again.”

“Then I’ll haste to wed a sailor, and send him off to sea, For a life of independence, is the pleasant life for me. But every now and then I shall like to see his face, For it always seems to me to beam with manly grace, With his brow so nobly open, and his dark and kindly eye, Oh my heart beats fondly towards him whenever he is nigh. But when he says “Goodbye my love, I’m off across the sea,” First I cry for his departure, then laugh because I’m free. (“Nantucket Girl’s Song,” as recorded in Eliza Brock’s journal)”