The world of men is dreaming, it has gone mad in its sleep, and a snake is strangling it, but it can't wake up.

Sometimes, when we lose something major in life, we squeeze too hard on what remains. Afraid we will lose that last part of ourselves with which we are still familiar, we end up strangling the very thing we wish to preserve. I smothered my ex in all the wrong ways. I was weak and needy. I was uncertain and lacked confidence. I'd lost my focus, and for lack of a better term, I was scared. I knew and wanted no other life than working the sea. What I found to be mundane everyday life on shore was painful to me at best.

Guidance counselors always love to say, 'Just think positively,' but that's impossible when you have this thing inside of you, strangling every ounce of happiness you can muster. My body is an efficient happy-though-killing machine.

In the morning he was lying dead on one of the beds fully clothed. He was dead. I got the impression he wanted to go and I must have killed him. I can't remember strangling him. I just sat there shocked.

I mean Dodd-Frank is strangling small community banks. It doesn't make any difference what the interest rate is. They're not - they're not going to loan the money because they can't make any money for one thing plus the cost of compliance.

The world of men is dreaming it has gone mad in its sleep and a snake is strangling it but it can't wake up.