Quote of the day

[iambiguous]

God...

“When I was a little girl, everything in the world fell into either of these two categories: wrong or right. Black or white. Now that I am an adult, I have put childish things aside and now I know that some things fall into wrong and some things fall into right. Some things are categorized as black and some things are categorized as white. But most things in the world aren't either! Most things in the world aren't black, aren't white, aren't wrong, aren't right, but most of everything is just different. And now I know that there's nothing wrong with different, and that we can let things be different, we don't have to try and make them black or white, we can just let them be grey. And when I was a child, I thought that God was the God who only saw black and white. Now that I am no longer a child, I can see, that God is the God who can see the black and the white and the grey, too, and He dances on the grey! Grey is okay.” C. JoyBell C.

You know, if that's actually true. Right, Satyr?

“When God is going to do something wonderful, He or She always starts with a hardship...” Anne Lamott

For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fires
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

“Almighty God, I am sorry I am now an atheist, but have You read Nietzsche?” John Fante

I'll bet Sam Harris has.

“Our tendency in the midst of suffering is to turn on God. To get angry and bitter and shake our fist at the sky and say, 'God, you don't know what it's like! You don't understand! You have no idea what I'm going through. You don't have a clue how much this hurts.'
The cross is God's way of taking away all of our accusations, excuses, and arguments.
The cross is God taking on flesh and blood and saying, 'Me too.'" Rob Bell

Unless, of course, that's actually true.

“When every hope is gone, 'when helpers fail and comforts flee,' I find that help arrives somehow, from I know not where. Supplication, worship, prayer are no superstition; they are acts more real than the acts of eating, drinking, sitting or walking. It is no exaggeration to say that they alone are real, all else is unreal.” Mahatma Gandhi

Unless, of course, that's actually true.

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.” Stuart Chase

I've noticed that myself in fact.

[Atla]

“We need to have children, or the culture of Italy, Japan and France will disappear” said Musk

One step forward, two steps back. We can't allow the culture of Italy and Japan to disappear.

[iambiguous]

Existentialism...

“Nature teaches us lessons that no book can teach. It teaches us that there is always inequality in life. Just look at the animals around you: Some are bigger than others, some are stronger than others, some live longer than others, some dominate others, and some survive at the expense of others. Life is simply unfair.” Mouloud Benzadi

Let's change that.

“Nature appears to take pleasure in playing games with humans, overwhelming them with torrential rains one year, only to subject them to scorching heatwaves the next!” Mouloud Benzadi

Let's change that.

“It's like practicing pole vaulting your entire life, and then getting to the olympics and saying, ‘what the hell did I want to jump over this stupid bar for?'” Stephen King

Next up: practicing phillosophy?

“As long as there have been men and they have lived, they have all felt this tragic ambiguity of their condition, but as long as there have been philosophers and they have thought, most of them have tried to mask it.” Simone de Beauvoir

Yo, Mr. Objectivist...you're up!

“No one is accountable for existing at all, or for being constituted as he is, or for living in the circumstances and surroundings in which he lives. The fatality of his nature cannot be disentangled from the fatality of all that which has been and will be. He is not the result of a special design, a will, a purpose; he is not the subject of an attempt to attain an 'ideal of man' or an 'ideal of happiness' or an 'ideal of morality'--it is absurd to want to hand over his nature to some purpose or other. We invented the concept 'purpose': in reality purpose is lacking...One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole--there exists nothing which could judge, measure, compare, condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, condemn the whole...” Friedrich Nietzsche

The whole what?

“There is no human nature, since there is no God to conceive it.” Jean-Paul Sartre

Tell that to these folks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

[iambiguous]

Absurd...

“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.” Albert Camus

Tell me about it...

“Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” Jon Stewart

Go figure?

"What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.” Albert Camus

Tell us about yours.

“If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” Albert Einstein

Uh, space-time?

“I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” Jon Stewart

Sound familiar?

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.” Niels Bohr

Let's explain that.

[iambiguous]

Giacomo Leopardi from Zibaldone

Children find everything in nothing, men find nothing in everything.

Uh, theoretically?

No one thing shows the greatness and power of the human intellect or the loftiness and nobility of man more than his ability to know and to understand fully and feel strongly his own smallness.

Small, but white. Right Satyr? AJ?

As soon as the child is born, the mother who has just brought him into the world must console him, quiet his crying, and lighten the burden of the existence she has given him. And one of the principal duties of good parents in the childhood and early youth of their children is to comfort them, to encourage them to live, because sorrows and ills and passions are at that age much heavier than they are to those who through long experience, or simply because they have lived longer, are used to suffering. And in truth it is only fitting that the good father and the good mother, in trying to console their children, correct as best they can, and ease, the damage they have done by procreating them. Good God! Why then is man born? And why does he procreate? To console those he has given birth to for having been born?

The human condition in a nutshell.
One of them anyway.

In all our actions, including those that appear selfless, we are in search of some kind of pleasure, even if it is only the pleasure of self-esteem. But while our desire for pleasure is infinite, our mental and physical organs are capable only of limited and temporary pleasures; and this mismatch between desire and capacity dooms us to perpetual dissatisfaction. There is no pleasure big or total enough to quench, even momentarily, our thirst for pleasure. But since the absence of pleasure is pain, it follows that we are always in pain, even when we might believe otherwise. And if life is nothing but an unbroken experience of pain, it would be better for every human being never to have been born.

The human condition in a nutshell.
One of them anyway.

So the peak of human knowledge or philosophy is to recognize its own uselessness—if man were still the same as he was in the beginning—and to undo the damage that it has done, and return man to the condition in which he would always have been if it had never existed.

See, I told you.

It is a property of works of genius that, even when they represent vividly the nothingness of things, even when they clearly show and make you feel the inevitable unhappiness of life, even when they express the most terrible despair, nevertheless to a great soul that finds itself in a state of extreme dejection, disenchantment, nothingness, boredom and discouragement about life, or in the most bitter and deathly misfortune, such works always bring consolation, and rekindle enthusiasm, and, though they treat and represent nothing but death, they restore, albeit momentarily, the life that it had lost.

And if they don't?

[iambiguous]

Philosophy...

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.” Albert Einstein

Imagaine him here then!

“Have you ever noticed how ‘What the hell’ is always the right decision to make?” Terry Johnson

Or never the right decision.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead

Let's just say for better or for worse. Though not necessarily in that order.

“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.” Kahlil Gibran

Either that or, for the Kids here, yak, yak, yak.

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.” Albert Camus

Well, unless you count women.

“May you live every day of your life.” Jonathan Swift

Hint, hint.

[Dontaskme]

“True philosophers make dying their profession, and to them of all people, death is the least alarming. It is the prospect of attaining their lifelong desire, wisdom.” -Plato, Phaedo

[iambiguous]

John Steinbeck from The Grapes of Wrath

There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do.

Next up: there ain't no Heaven and there ain't no Hell.

And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed.

Nope, not always. Let's at least agree about that.

It was her habit to build up laughter out of inadequate materials.

Or, here, build up arguments.

How can we live without our lives? How will we know it's us without our past?

Cue dasein?

The quality of owning freezes you forever in "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we.”

Capitalism let's call it. Or, sometimes, "we are fascists".

You're bound to get idears if you go thinkin' about stuff.

If you want to call them that, of course.

[iambiguous]

Despair...

“When all else is lost, the future still remains.” Christian Bovee

Or, rather, what's left of it?

“How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say It is over.” Edward Thomas

On the other hand: https://youtu.be/f_VvMaSvaqk?si=oEfwt0OhxdJDM21g

“Despair was a heavy blackness that let no light in or out. It was a hell beyond expression.” Yann Martel

Mine more than yours perhaps?

“The term schizoid refers to an individual the totality of whose experience is split in two main ways: in the first place, there is a rent in his relation with his world and, in the second, there is a disruption of his relation with himself. Such a person is not able to experience himself 'together with' others or 'at home in' the world, but, on the contrary, he experiences himself in despairing aloneness and isolation; moreover, he does not experience himself as a complete person but rather as 'split' in various ways, perhaps as a mind more or less tenuously linked to a body, as two or more selves, and so on.” R.D. Laing

Personas let's call them. Or Knots.

“The fundamental fact about all of us is that we’re alive for a while but will die before long. This fact is the real root cause of all our anger and pain and despair. And you can either run from this fact or, by way of love, you can embrace it.” Jonathan Franzen

Right, lovingly embrace it!

“Despair is a free man—hope is a slave.” L.M. Montgomery

He hoped not.

[Dontaskme]

“How nice it would be to be dead if only we could know we were dead. That is what I hate, the not being able to turn round in the grave and to say It is over.” Edward Thomas


I can die while I live and know death that way.
It’s the sweetest way to live in my personal experience ~ DAM the MAD Am

[iambiguous]

Arundhati Roy from The God of Small Things

If you're happy in a dream, does that count?

Twice as much eventually.

Some things come with their own punishments.

All things eventually.

There is a war that makes us adore our conquerors and despise ourselves.

It starts with a V.

Ammu said that human beings were creatures of habit, and it was amazing the kind of things one could get used to.

And here we still are, of course.

As Estha stirred the thick jam he thought Two Thoughts and the Two Thoughts he thought were these:
a) Anything can happen to anyone.
and
b) It is best to be prepared.

b for sure.

It was a time when the unthinkable became the thinkable and the impossible really happened.

Imagine next year then!
And a leap year to boot!!

[iambiguous]

Carson McCullers from The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

All we can do is go around telling the truth.

Unlike the pinheads, say.

The people dreamed and fought and slept as much as ever. And by habit they shortened their thoughts so that they would not wander out into the darkness beyond tomorrow.

Or today if they're lucky.

I do not have any home. So why should I be homesick?

Unless you count Miners Mills. And I certainly do. Right Carol?

Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can’t live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness. Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear—and nobody seems to know. Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and mean.

Capitalism let's call it.

But look what the Church has done to Jesus during the last two thousand years. What they have made of Him. How they have turned every word He spoke for their own vile ends. Jesus would be framed and in jail if he was living today.

Yo, Frederick!: https://youtu.be/C86FU8h-d6Y?si=W9fUsTWJ19Nfa_E4

My advice to you is this. Do not attempt to stand alone. The most fatal thing a man can do is try to stand alone.

Now that's bullshit.
If you're lucky.

[iambiguous]

Osamu Dazai from No Longer Human

What did he mean by "society"? The plural of human beings?

Next up: what did he mean by "woke"?

All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? I don't know.

Of course, he's only paraphrasing me.

Living itself is the source of sin.

The one and the only. Unless you count God.

I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.

I guess we'll find out.
Whatever that means.

The world, after all, was still a place of bottomless horror. It was by no means a place of childlike simplicity where everything could be settled by a simple then-and-there decision.

Let alone by settling things here.

The weak fear happiness itself.

If only, perhaps, on this side of the grave.

[iambiguous]

Suicide...

“The awareness of the damage done by severe mental illness—to the individual himself and to others—and fears that it may return again play a decisive role in many suicides ” Kay Redfield Jamison

Twice in my case.

“We Greeks are a moody people. Suicide makes sense to us. Putting up Christmas lights after your own daughter does it—that makes no sense. What my yia yia could never understand about America was why everyone pretended to be happy all the time.” Jeffrey Eugenides

Next up: moody pappoús.

“She was completely alone in the world. There was no one at all for her. No one in the world who cared whether she lived or died. Sometimes the horror of that thought threatened to overwhelm her and plunge her down into a bottomless darkness from which there would be no return. If no one in the entire world cared about you, did you really exist at all?” Cassandra Clare

Ask me that!

“There’s no reason to live, but there’s no reason to die, either. The only way we can still show our contempt for life is to accept it. Life is not worth the bother of leaving it. Out of charity, one might spare a few individuals the trouble of living, but what about oneself? Despair, indifference, betrayal, fidelity, solitude, the family, freedom, weight, money, poverty, love, absence of love, syphilis, health, sleep, insomnia, desire, impotence, platitudes, art, honesty, dishonor, mediocrity, intelligence – nothing there to make a fuss about. We know only too well what those things are made of, no point in watching for them.” Jacques Rigaut

Being optimistic, let's say.

“I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.” Suzanne Finnamore

Or, perhaps, the least imperfectly?

“On average, since the urge to kill myself isn't so strong that I actually kill myself, the world is worth living in.” Tao Lin

From day to day as it were.

[iambiguous]

Ernest Cline from Ready Player One

You're probably wondering what's going to happen to you. That's easy. The same thing is going to happen to you that has happened to every other human being who has ever lived. You're going to die. We all die. That's just how it is.

Okay, but then what?

You were born at a pretty crappy time in history. And it looks like things are only gonna get worse from here on out.

Only this time it's really true.

I wish someone had just told me the truth right up front, as soon as I was old enough to understand it. I wish someone had just said: “Here’s the deal, Wade. You’re something called a ‘human being.’ That’s a really smart kind of animal. Like every other animal on this planet, we’re descended from a single-celled organism that lived millions of years ago. This happened by a process called evolution, and you’ll learn more about it. But trust me, that’s really how we all got here. There’s proof of it everywhere, buried in the rocks. That story you heard? About how we were all created by a super-powerful dude named God who lives up in the sky? Total bullshit. The whole God thing is actually an ancient fairy tale that people have been telling one another for thousands of years. We made it all up. Like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. “Oh, and by the way … there’s no Santa Claus or Easter Bunny. Also bullshit. Sorry, kid, deal with it.

Then the stuff we make up here.

That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.

Virtually?

I watched a lot of YouTube videos of cute geeky girls playing '80s cover tunes on ukuleles. Technically, this wasn't part of my research, but I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Like being a philosopher.

I would argue that masturbation is the human animal's most important adaptation. The very cornerstone of our technological civilization. Our hands evolved to grip tools, all right—including our own. You see, thinkers, inventors, and scientists are usually geeks, and geeks have a harder time getting laid than anyone. Without the built-in sexual release valve provided by masturbation, it's doubtful that early humans would have ever mastered the secrets of fire or discovered the wheel. And you can bet that Galileo, Newton, and Einstein never would have made their discoveries if they hadn't first been able to clear their heads by slapping the salami (or "knocking a few protons off the old hydrogen atom"). The same goes for Marie Curie. Before she discovered radium, you can be certain she first discovered the little man in the canoe.

In fact, you're probably masturbating now.