Since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia has undergone a radical program of administrative decentralization and neoliberal reforms. In Methods of Desire, author Aurora Donzelli explores these changes through an innovative perspective—one that locates the production of neoliberalism in novel patterns of language use and new styles of affect display. Building on almost two decades of fieldwork, Donzelli describes how the growing influence of transnational lending agencies is transforming the ways in which people desire and voice their expectations, intentions, and entitlements within the emergent participatory democracy and restructuring of Indonesia’s political economy. She argues that a largely overlooked aspect of the Era Reformasi concerns the transition from a moral regime centered on the expectation that desires should remain hidden to a new emphasis on the public expression of individuals’ aspirations. The book examines how the large-scale institutional transformations that followed the collapse of the Suharto regime have impacted people’s lives and imaginations in the relatively remote and primarily rural Toraja highlands of Sulawesi. A novel concept of the individual as a bundle of audible and measurable desires has emerged, one that contrasts with the deep-rooted reticence toward the expression of personal preferences. The spreading of foreign discursive genres such as customer satisfaction surveys, training sessions, electoral mission statements, and fundraising auctions, and the diffusion of new textual artifacts such as checklists, flowcharts, and workflow diagrams are producing forms of citizenship, political participation, and moral agency that contrast with the longstanding epistemologies of secrecy typical of local styles of knowledge and power. Donzelli’s long-term ethnographic study examines how these foreign protocols are being received, absorbed, and readapted in a peripheral community of the Indonesian archipelago. Combining a telescopic perspective on our contemporary moment with a microscopic analysis of conversational practices, the author argues that the managerial forms of political rationality and the entrepreneurial morality underwriting neoliberal apparatuses proliferate through the working of small cogs, that is, acts of speech. By examining these concrete communicative exchanges, she sheds light on both the coherence and inconsistency underlying the worldwide diffusion of market logic to all domains of life.

What happens when an ordinary person undertakes an extraordinary experience? He winds up atop North America's highest peak--Denali (Mt. McKinley), where his unlikely triumph sparks some surprising insights into his struggles at sea level. 21 full-color photos. "National Geographic Traveler" magazine two-part feature.

On the 100th anniversary of the first attempt to climb Mt Everest, Margret Grebowicz shows how and why climbing and mountaineering are still important today. In 1923, a reporter asked George Mallory why he wanted to summit Mount Everest. “Because it’s there”. Today the question "why do this?" is included in nearly every mountaineering story or interview. Meanwhile, interest in climbing is steadily on the rise, from commercial mountaineering and climbing walls in university gyms and corporate workplaces to the flood of spectacular climbing imagery in advertising, cinema, and social media. Climbing has become the theater for imagining limits—of the human body and of the planet— and the nature of desire, motivation, and #goals. Covering the degradation of Everest, the banning of climbing on Australia’s Uluru, UNESCO’s decision to name alpinism an Intangible Cultural Heritage, the sudden death of Ueli Steck, and the commercial and critical success of Free Solo, Mountains and Desire chases after what remains of this pursuit – marred by its colonial history, coopted by nationalistic chauvinism, ableism, and the capitalist compulsion to unlimited growth – for both climbers and their fans.

Can we find a life filled with passion, without being overwhelmed by it? In this groundbreaking book, John Eldredge invites readers to acknowledge the significance of desire, abandon resignation, and embark on an adventure he calls “our heart’s most important journey.” Eldredge writes, “There is a secret set within each of our hearts. It is the desire for life as it was meant to be.” Yet how do we uncover our desires and learn to decipher them? As Eldredge says, “We all share the same dilemma—we long for life and we’re not sure where to find it. We wonder if we ever do find it, can we make it last? . . . We must journey to find the life we prize. And the guide we have been given is the desire set deep within, the desire we often overlook or mistake for something else or even choose to ignore. The greatest human tragedy is to give up the search.” Many good people have been told that the path to a holy life requires us to kill our hearts’ desires. And call it sanctification. But in this re-release of one of Eldredge’s most inspiring works, we discover that God is the author of our deepest desires. He has given us desire, and he loves to fulfill our hearts’ desires. For as the Psalms declare, “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (37:4). God is calling to you through the desires of your heart. How you respond will set the course for the rest of your life. “[Desire] is a profound and winsome call to walk into the heart of God and hear Him sing to your soul about His love. In a world of frenzy and clamor about desire, we often miss the ache that lifts our face to look into His eyes. This book will stir your heart and invite you to know the one desire that captures all passion for His purpose. Drink in this work, and your life will not be the same.” Dan Allender, Author, The Healing Path

“Pollan shines a light on our own nature as well as on our implication in the natural world.” —The New York Times “A wry, informed pastoral.” —The New Yorker The book that helped make Michael Pollan, the New York Times bestselling author of How to Change Your Mind, Cooked and The Omnivore’s Dilemma, one of the most trusted food experts in America Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers’ genes far and wide. In The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan ingeniously demonstrates how people and domesticated plants have formed a similarly reciprocal relationship. He masterfully links four fundamental human desires—sweetness, beauty, intoxication, and control—with the plants that satisfy them: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato. In telling the stories of four familiar species, Pollan illustrates how the plants have evolved to satisfy humankind’s most basic yearnings. And just as we’ve benefited from these plants, we have also done well by them. So who is really domesticating whom?

Have you ever appointed an individual to a key position in your church or ministry, only to realize later on that you made a poor choice? Or perhaps you realized that although the individual had potential, he or she wasn't quite ready to assume the responsibility you had assigned. Such regrets are unfortunate - and they are entirely...

Gregg Lambert examines two facets of the return to religion in the 21st century: the resurgence of overtly religious themes in contemporary philosophy and the global 'post-secular' turn that has been taking place since 9/11. He asks how these two 'returns to religion' can be taking place simultaneously, and explores the relationship between them. Lambert reflects on statements of these returns from contemporary philosophers including Alain Badiou, John D. Caputo, Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy. He discovers a unique - and forboding - sense of the term 'religion' that belongs exclusively to our contemporary perspective.

In his groundbreaking book, The Journey of Desire, John Eldredge invites readers to: Rediscover their God-given desire. Abandon resignation. Search again for the life they once dreamed of. Sometimes it seems we just can't get what we want. Circumstances thwart our best-laid plans. We struggle to live a heartfelt life. Worst of all, says Eldredge, the modern church mistakenly teaches its people to kill desire (calling it sin) and replace it with duty or obligation (calling it sanctification). As a result, at best Christians tend to live safe, boring lives of resignation. At worst, their desire eventually breaks out in destructive ways such as substance abuse, affairs, and pornography addictions.

The suns rays filtered in from the partially opened shades of the plane. They lit up the world in front of me and warmed my soul, knowing I was almost to my destination. The beautiful golden light replaced the grey and hazy cobwebs from my eyes, revealing the most spectacular scene I had ever seen in my entire life. I looked out the small seven-inch window and witnessed something that Ill never forget! I beheld something in this magnificent world that the majority of people never get to see. I was looking out at Mount Everest, the worlds highest peak! I was at the tail end of a three-flight journey with two layovers in between, nearly logging twenty-four hours of flight time. I hadnt gotten any real sleep in the last thirty-six hours. My bloodshot eyes were heavy, my mind was slow and sluggish, and my body was even slower in response. How did I get here? I thought to myself. Am I d-r-e-a-m-i-n-g? As Lao and Confucius once said, A journey of one-thousand miles begins with one step. My story is about inspiring you to take your own journey one step at a time. Its about dreaming and accomplishing the impossible. Its not only about aiming for the sky and reaching for the stars but enjoying the journey along the way. Begin your personal journey today, press forward to the top, and dont you ever stop. As you move toward your dreams, there will be obstacles and setbacks along the way; dont be afraid. You can get to the top of your world by following the signs and guide posts within these pages. You can do it with others! You can do it with me! We can do it together, one step at a time! Impossible! - Jeff Griffin