Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Fri Jan 12, 2024 8:57 pm**

John Steinbeck from The Grapes of Wrath

Tell 'em to God. Don' go burdenin' other people with your sins. That ain't decent.

Of course nothing is decent these days.

I know, Ma. I'm a-tryin'. But them deputies- Did you ever see a deputy that didn't have a fat ass? An' they waggle their ass an' flop their gun aroun'. Ma, he said, if it was the law they was workin' with, why we could take it. But it ain't the law. They're a-working away at our spirits. They're a-tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They're tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're working on our decency.

The deep state. Of, by and for the ruling class: “I can hire one-half the working class to kill the other half". Jay Gould

The women watched the men, watched to see whether the break had come at last. The women stood silently and watched. And where a number of men gathered together, the fear went from their faces, and anger took its place. And the women sighed with relief, for they knew it was all right - the break had not come; and the break would never come as long as fear could turn to wrath.

Of course, that's true for both sides.

Our people are good people, our people are kind people. Pray God someday kind people won't all be poor. Pray God someday a kid can eat. And the associations of owners know that some day the praying would stop. And there's the end.

Nope, hasn't stopped yet.

I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied.

Uh, me too?

It don't take no nerve to do somepin when there ain't nothin' else you can do.

That's not true, is it?

Posted: **Sat Jan 13, 2024 8:57 pm**

Salman Rushdie from Midnight's Children

I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I'm gone which would not have happened if I had not come.

Aren't we all?

Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent version of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own.

Not counting my own of course.

We all owe death a life.

And then on to the next one?

What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.

For example?

Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.

If only going back to the Big Bang.

No people whose word for 'yesterday' is the same as their word for 'tomorrow' can be said to have a firm grip on the time.

Of course, no one really has a firm grip on time itself.

Posted: **Sun Jan 14, 2024 1:48 am**

Despair...

“I can still hear the screams. They wake me in the night. Terrible, gut wrenching, painful screams; screams that can only come from the deepest and darkest recesses of the mind. These were not screams of pain. These were screams of years of sorrow and despair. These were screams that made your skin crawl. These were the worst screams I have ever heard. I cannot get them out of my head. Perhaps, they will be with me forever. I shouldn't be so lucky.” Jamie Schoffman

No getting around luck here though, is there?

“And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. And we can't know the lives of others. And we can't know our own lives beyond the details we can manage. And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside of the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change." Jeanette Winterson

Cue Benjamin Button. Among others.

“You have not seen desperation and helplessness till you have seen a man hopeless in love. Of course, unless you have seen a gamer.” Vineet Raj Kapoor

Or, sure, a gamer hopelessly in love with the stupid game itself.

“Schizophrenia cannot be understood without understanding despair. R.D. Laing

Still, would you like him [you know who] to give it a shot?

“The train bore me away, through the monstrous scenery of slag-heaps, chimneys, piled scrap-iron, foul canals, paths of cindery mud criss-crossed by the prints of clogs. This was March, but the weather had been horribly cold and everywhere there were mounds of blackened snow. As we moved slowly through the outskirts of the town we passed row after row of little grey slum houses running at right angles to the embankment. At the back of one of the houses a young woman was kneeling on the stones, poking a stick up the leaden waste-pipe which ran from the sink inside and which I suppose was blocked. I had time to see everything about her—her sacking apron, her clumsy clogs, her arms reddened by the cold. She looked up as the train passed, and I was almost near enough to catch her eye. She had a round pale face, the usual exhausted face of the slum girl who is twenty-five and looks forty, thanks to miscarriages and drudgery; and it wore, for the second in which I saw it, the most desolate, hopeless expression I have ever-seen. It struck me then that we are mistaken when we say that ‘It isn’t the same for them as it would be for us,’ and that people bred in the slums can imagine nothing but the slums. For what I saw in her face was not the ignorant suffering of an animal. She knew well enough what was happening to her—understood as well as I did how dreadful a destiny it was to be kneeling there in the bitter cold, on the slimy stones of a slum backyard, poking a stick up a foul drain-pipe.” George Orwell

I know, I know: "There but for the grace of God go I."

“I had no hope. Yet expectation lived on in me, the last thing she had left behind. What further consummations, mockeries, torments did I still anticipate? I had no idea as I abided in the unshaken belief that the time of cruel wonders was not yet over.” Stanisław Lem

The Earth equivalent? Posting here.

Posted: **Sun Jan 14, 2024 8:07 pm**

Osamu Dazai from No Longer Human

The "world," after all, was still a place of bottomless horror.

Topless too.

God, I ask you. Is trustfulness a sin?

Down here for example.

I have sometimes thought that I have been burdened with a pack of ten misfortunes, any one of which if borne by my neighbor would be enough to make a murderer out of him.

Of course, he's only paraphrasing Ecmandu.

She lay down beside me. Towards dawn she pronounced for the first time the word “death.” She too seemed to be weary beyond endurance of the task of being a human being; and when I reflected on my dread of the world and its bothersomeness, on money, the movement, women, my studies, it seemed impossible that I could go on living. I consented easily to her proposal.

Yo, Supannika!

The desire to see frightening things—that was what drew me every night to the bar where, like the child who squeezes his pet all the harder when he actually fears it a little, I proclaimed to the customers standing at the bar my drunken, bungling theories of art.

That ever happen to you?

The more I think of it, the less I understand. 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.

Which brought him here.

Posted: **Mon Jan 15, 2024 12:44 am**

Religuous...

These questions about what happens when you die, they so freak people out that they will just make up any story and cling to it. You know, things that they know can't be true, people who are otherwise so rational about everything else, and then they believe that on Sunday they're drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old God. I can't-- that's a dissonance in my head. I can't-- I have to find out.

Hey, me too!

Yeah, you could be right. I don't think it's very likely, but, yes, you could be right, because my big thing is I don't know. That's what I preach. I preach the gospel of I don't know! I mean that's what I'm here promoting...doubt. That's my product. The other guys are selling certainty, not me. I'm on the corner with doubt.

Hey, me too!

I think being without faith is something that's a luxury for people who were fortunate enough to have a fortunate life. You know, you go to prison and you hear a guy say, ''You know what, buddy? I got nothing but Jesus in here.'' I completely understand that. I think not having faith is a luxury sometimes. If you're in a foxhole, you probably have a lot of faith, right? Mm-hmm. So I get that.

Hey, me too!

...behind me and above me is the original Twin Cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. Apparently, it was a pretty wicked place. How wicked? Well let's just say that what happened in Gomorrah, stayed in Gomorrah. That is until God got wind of it, so he sent two angels to investigate. Now the angels went to the house of the one godly man in town...Lot. And the townspeople tried to rape them. Now Lot, not wanting his town to get the reputation as the kind of place that would rape angels, offered up to the mob his own daughters to rape. And he was the good guy in town. Which brings me to this question: If I ever had to swear an oath, why would I want to put my hand on the King James Bible? I think I could find more morality in the Rick James Bible.

Next up: Rick's mysterious ways.

According to scientology, Xenu brought us here 75 million years ago, stacked us around volcanoes and blew them up with an H-bomb. We are older than the universe. You have to rid yourself of the implants from the extraterrestrial dictators! Get an E-Meter. Yes, get an E-Meter! An E-meter? Audit yourself. How do you people expect to get to the next level? I'm not making the rules.

Tom cruised right through that part I suspect. The elders, no doubt, cut him considerable slack.

You know, Scientologists. And right, you're like, ''Oh, yeah, that's some crazy shit. Okay. Jesus with the virgin birth and the dove and the snake who talked in the garden, that's cool. But the Scientologists, they're the crazy ones.''

Come on, please, nothing tops Scientology here.

Posted: **Mon Jan 15, 2024 7:52 pm**

Jodi Picoult from My Sister's Keeper

There are some things we do because we convince ourselves it would be better for everyone involved. We tell ourselves that it's the right thing to do, the altruistic thing to do. It's far easier than telling ourselves the truth.

On the other hand, the truth about what?

Normal, in our house, is like a blanket too short for a bed--sometimes it covers you just fine, and other times it leaves you cold and shaking; and worst of all, you never know which of the two it's going to be.

Next up: normal here.

Lately, I have been having nightmares, where I'm cut into so many pieces that there isn't enough of me to be put back together.

Tell me about it.

24/7. Once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.

And, every now and then, a father.

Life sometimes gets so bogged down in the details, you forget you are living it. There is always another appointment to be met, another bill to pay, another symptom presenting, another uneventful day to be notched onto the wooden wall. We have synchronized our watches, studied our calendars, existed in minutes, and completely forgotten to step back and see what we've accomplished.

After all, look at what we accomplish here.

And the very act of living is a tide; at first it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded.

Storm surge let's call it.

Posted: **Tue Jan 16, 2024 12:48 am**

Suicide...

“When the bell rings, and lunch is over, I decide to come back here tomorrow, and the next day. I tell myself it really isn’t that bad.” Nina LaCour

Next up: dinner.

“I not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of suffering.” Raheem Kirlew

Okay, but what if you are afraid of both?

“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.” Jasmine Warga

Praise the Lord?

“What he knows now is that guilt isn’t the only reason people commit suicide. Sometimes you can just get bored with afternoon TV.” Stephen King

Or posting here?

“In a sense...killing yourself amounts to confessing. It is confessing that life is too much for you or that you do not understand it.” Albert Camus

Don't get me started.

“Did you see her again in France?" I asked him.”
“No. When I got to France, she was already dead. She committed suicide...”
“Why?”
“She often told me she was frightened of getting old...” Patrick Modiano

I'm still grappling with that myself.

Posted: **Tue Jan 16, 2024 11:19 pm**

Ernest Cline from Ready Player One

Standing there, under the bleak fluorescents of my tiny one-room apartment, there was no escaping the truth. In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture–obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified video game.

Next up: the equivalent of that here.

I had a serious cute-geeky-girls-playing-ukuleles fetish that I can neither explain nor defend.

Next up: the equivalent of that here?

It's chick flick disguised as a sword-and-sorcery picture. The only genre film with less balls is probably... freakin' Legend. Anyone who actually enjoys Ladyhawke is a bona fide USDA-choice pussy!

Next up: chick philosophy.

It occurred to me then that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I had absolutely no desire to log back into the OASIS.

For about 30 minutes say.

When it came to my research, I never took any shortcuts. Over the past five years, I’d worked my way down the entire recommended gunter reading list. Douglas Adams. Kurt Vonnegut. Neal Stephenson. Richard K. Morgan. Stephen King. Orson Scott Card. Terry Pratchett. Terry Brooks. Bester, Bradbury, Haldeman, Heinlein, Tolkien, Vance, Gibson, Gaiman, Sterling, Moorcock, Scalzi, Zelazny.

Start here: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/119 ... mendations
Just don't get back to us please.

Before long, billions of people around the world were working and playing in the OASIS every day. Some of them met, fell in love, and got married without ever setting foot on the same continent. The lines of distinction between a person’s real identity and that of their avatar began to blur. It was the dawn of new era, one where most of the human race now spent all of their free time inside a videogame.

Or posting here.

Posted: **Wed Jan 17, 2024 1:06 am**

Nihilism...

“My consultants recommended several nihilists and existentialists but I rejected them all. A black turtleneck sweater does not a misanthrope make. Nihilists and existentialists tend to be bohemians, who invariably run in packs; despite their alienated stance, they have always struck me as a sociable lot who surround themselves with people because they are forever saying "Nothing matters," and they need someone to say it to.” Florence King

Unless, of course, she's wrong.

“You see—I hope you never get there yourself—but some of us get to the point in life where we realise that nothing matters. Nothing fucking matters.” Julian Barnes

Not even that fucking matters.

“Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Volk. Land. Blut. Ehre. Not of honorable men but of Ehre itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them." Philip K. Dick

Yo, AJ!
Among others, of course.

“…ours is a world about which we pretend to have more and more information but which seems to us increasingly devoid of meaning.” Jean-Pierre Dupuy.

He wondered what that meant.

“From a cosmic perspective, I'm simply an accident that has nothing to lose. Why take it all so seriously?” Vizi Andrei

Right. From a cosmic perspective.

“I often wonder and imagine
What lies just beyond the fringe
Of the human experience;
What is it that we do not see?” Justin Wetch

Ah, the gap.

Posted: **Wed Jan 17, 2024 4:16 pm**

God...

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. This Being governs all things, not as the soul of the world, but as Lord over all; and on account of his dominion he is wont, to be called Lord God, παντοκρατωρ or Universal Ruler.” Isaac Newton

Now what, Atheists!

“There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise. Not Peter, not Paul, not any of those guys. He was a convicted thief, being executed. So don't knock the guys on death row. Maybe they know something you don't.” Neil Gaiman

No, really, how important is this? For example, if it's true.

“These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy...walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve is frightening.” Yann Martel

Or, here in America, a slight against Trump.

“If you follow the will of God, you know that in spite of all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge. You know that the foundation of the world is love, so that even when no human being can or will help you, you may go on, trusting in the One that loves you.” Pope Benedict XVI

More to the point, as with those like AJ, he insists that this is true. On the other hand, he is a Catholic, right IC?

“Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz. What I might have set down with more accuracy would have been: Someday I will write about Sophie's life and death, and thereby help demonstrate how absolute evil is never extinguished from the world. Auschwitz itself remains inexplicable. The most profound statement yet made about Auschwitz was not a statement at all, but a response.
The query: "At Auschwitz, tell me, where was God?"
And the answer: "Where was man?” William Styron

Please. Men and women are not omnipotent. But many of them fought and defeated Hitler...20 million military personnel and 40 million civilians died. Now, where was this omnipotent God?

“I cannot choose but adhere to the word of God, which has possession of my conscience; nor can I possibly, nor will I even make any recantation, since it is neither safe nor honest to act contrary to conscience! Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God! Amen.” Martin Luther

The fool!
Some say.

Posted: **Thu Jan 18, 2024 1:19 am**

Existentialism...

“Tell me something. Do you believe in God?'
Snow darted an apprehensive glance in my direction. 'What? Who still believes nowadays?'
'It isn't that simple. I don't mean the traditional God of Earth religion. I'm no expert in the history of religions, and perhaps this is nothing new--do you happen to know if there was ever a belief in an...imperfect God?'
'What do you mean by imperfect?' Snow frowned. 'In a way all the gods of the old religions were imperfect, considered that their attributes were amplified human ones. The God of the Old Testament, for instance, required humble submission and sacrifices, and and was jealous of other gods. The Greek gods had fits of sulks and family quarrels, and they were just as imperfect as mortals...'
'No,' I interrupted. 'I'm not thinking of a god whose imperfection arises out of the candor of his human creators, but one whose imperfection represents his essential characteristic: a god limited in his omniscience and power, fallible, incapable of foreseeing the consequences of his acts, and creating things that lead to horror. He is a...sick god, whose ambitions exceed his powers and who does not realize it at first. A god who has created clocks, but not the time they measure. He has created systems or mechanisms that serves specific ends but have now overstepped and betrayed them. And he has created eternity, which was to have measured his power, and which measures his unending defeat.'
Snow hesitated, but his attitude no longer showed any of the wary reserve of recent weeks:
'There was Manicheanism...'
'Nothing at all to do with the principles of Good and Evil,' I broke in immediately. 'This god has no existence outside of matter. He would like to free himself from matter, but he cannot...'
Snow pondered for a while:
'I don't know of any religion that answers your description. That kind of religion has never been...necessary. If i understand you, and I'm afraid I do, what you have in mind is an evolving god, who develops in the course of time, grows, and keeps increasing in power while remaining aware of his powerlessness. For your god, the divine condition is a situation without a goal. And understanding that, he despairs. But isn't this despairing god of yours mankind, Kelvin? Is it man you are talking about, and that is a fallacy, not just philosophically but also mystically speaking.'
I kept on:
'No, it's nothing to do with man. Man may correspond to my provisional definition from some point of view, but that is because the definition has a lot of gaps. Man does not create gods, in spite of appearances. The times, the age, impose them on him. Man can serve is age or rebel against it, but the target of his cooperation or rebellion comes to him from outside. If there was only a since human being in existence, he would apparently be able to attempt the experiment of creating his own goals in complete freedom--apparently, because a man not brought up among other human beings cannot become a man. And the being--the being I have in mind--cannot exist in the plural, you see? ...Perhaps he has already been born somewhere, in some corner of the galaxy, and soon he will have some childish enthusiasm that will set him putting out one star and lighting another. We will notice him after a while...'
'We already have,' Snow said sarcastically. 'Novas and supernovas. According to you they are candles on his altar.'
'If you're going to take what I say literally...'
...Snow asked abruptly:
'What gave you this idea of an imperfect god?'
'I don't know. It seems quite feasible to me. That is the only god I could imagine believing in, a god whose passion is not a redemption, who saves nothing, fulfills no purpose--a god who simply is.” Stanisław Lem

A couple of epistemologists...and lots and lots of clouds.

“...the best existential analysis of the human condition leads directly into the problems of God and faith.” Ernest Becker

Or, perhaps, for the particularly weak-minded among us, directly to God and faith as the solution.

“There is no unmoving mover behind the movement. It is only movement. It is not correct to say that life is moving, but life is movement itself. Life and movement are not two different things. In other words, there is no thinker behind the thought. Thought itself is the thinker. If you remove the thought, there is no thinker to be found.” Walpola Rahula

Uh, we'll need a context?

“I think that to understand any one thing entirely, no matter how minute, requires the understanding of every other thing in the world.” John Barth

Uh, good luck with that?

“Well, I mean, yes idealism, yes the dignity of pure research, yes the pursuit of truth in all its forms, but there comes a point I'm afraid where you begin to suspect that if there's any real truth, it's that the entire multi-dimensional infinity of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs.” Douglas Adams

Next up: the maniacs here.

“Maybe that’s how it will go – instead of one definitive cataclysm, a series of ‘anomalies’, each time lasting longer, with the stretches of what you call normal life becoming further and further apart, until one day it dawns on you that this is normal life now...” Paul Murray

Maybe that's how it's already gone. Let's get back to this on November 6th.

Posted: **Thu Jan 18, 2024 8:15 pm**

Absurd...

“How fishy on the fishiness scale? Ten is a stickleback and one is a whale shark."
"A whale isn't a fish, Thursday."
"A whale shark is--sort of."
"All right, it's as fishy as a crayfish."
"A crayfish isn't a fish."
"A starfish, then."
"Still not a fish."
"This is a very odd conversation, Thursday.” Jasper Fforde

And indicative of just how absurd life can be.

“Humans are creatures who spent their lifes trying to convince themselves that their existence is not absurd.” Albert Camus

And then it's off to Heaven.

“They haven't left us much to believe in, have they? Even disbelief. I can't believe in anything bigger than a home or vaguer than a human being.” Graham Greene

And we all know who they are.

“To stay or to go, it amounted to the same thing.” Albert Camus

Though, one suspects, not always.

“Some Christian lawyers—some eminent and stupid judges—have said and still say, that the Ten Commandments are the foundation of all law.
Nothing could be more absurd. Long before these commandments were given there were codes of laws in India and Egypt—laws against murder, perjury, larceny, adultery and fraud. Such laws are as old as human society; as old as the love of life; as old as industry; as the idea of prosperity; as old as human love.
All of the Ten Commandments that are good were old; all that were new are foolish. If Jehovah had been civilized he would have left out the commandment about keeping the Sabbath, and in its place would have said: 'Thou shalt not enslave thy fellow-men.' He would have omitted the one about swearing, and said: 'The man shall have but one wife, and the woman but one husband.' He would have left out the one about graven images, and in its stead would have said: 'Thou shalt not wage wars of extermination, and thou shalt not unsheathe the sword except in self-defence.'
If Jehovah had been civilized, how much grander the Ten Commandments would have been.
All that we call progress—the enfranchisement of man, of labor, the substitution of imprisonment for death, of fine for imprisonment, the destruction of polygamy, the establishing of free speech, of the rights of conscience; in short, all that has tended to the development and civilization of man; all the results of investigation, observation, experience and free thought; all that man has accomplished for the benefit of man since the close of the Dark Ages—has been done in spite of the Old Testament.” Robert G Ingersoll

One man's opinion, right?

“Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.” Robert G. Ingersoll

Start here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... SjDNeMaRoX

Posted: **Thu Jan 18, 2024 10:12 pm**

Closer

Larry: Alice, tell me something true.
Alice: Lying's the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off...but it's better if you do.

Even naked though, her name is still not Alice. That's a lie.

Dan: I fell in love with her, Alice.
Alice: Oh, as if you had no choice? There's a moment, there's always a moment, "I can do this, I can give into this, or I can resist it", and I don't know when your moment was, but I bet you there was one.

You know, given free will. And the script of course.

Larry: What does your **** taste like?
Alice: Heaven.

Blasphemy?

Anna: We do everything that people who have sex do!
Larry: Do you enjoy sucking him off?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: You like his cock?
Anna: I love it!
Larry: You like him coming in your face?
Anna: Yes!
Larry: What does it taste like?
Anna: It tastes like you but sweeter!
Larry: That's the spirit. Thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag.

Of course [scripted or not] we all know how that turns out.

Dan: Didn't fancy my sandwiches?
Alice: Don't eat fish.
Dan: Why not?
Alice: Fish piss in the sea.
Dan: So do children.
Alice: Don't eat children either.

Next up: fish shit in the sea?

Larry: You don't know the first thing about love, because you don't understand compromise.

Alice more or less than Anna?

Posted: **Fri Jan 19, 2024 7:22 pm**

Philosophy...

“A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window.” Gilles Deleuze

Go figure?

“If you win, you need not have to explain. If you lose, you should not be there to explain!” Adolf Hitler

Next up: when Trump loses.

“Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people we personally dislike.” Oscar Wilde

And this ain't exactly the Gilded Age.

“Like all magnificent things, it's very simple.” Natalie Babbitt

Name some.

“A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.” Ludwig Wittgenstein

For example: https://knowthyself.forumotion.net/f6-agora

“Sometimes I lie awake at night and I ask, 'Is life a multiple choice test or is it a true or false test?' Then a voice comes to me out of the dark and says, 'We hate to tell you this but life is a thousand word essay'.” Charles M. Schulz

If only all the way to Judgment Day.

Posted: **Fri Jan 19, 2024 9:23 pm**

Salman Rushdie from Midnight's Children

Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.

The future? Fuhgeddaboudit.

Who what am I? My answer: I am the sum total of everything that went before me, of all I have been seen done, of everything done-to-me. I am everyone everything whose being-in-the-world affected was affected by mine. I am anything that happens after I've gone which would not have happened if I had not come. Nor am I particularly exceptional in this matter; each "I", everyone of the now-six-hundred-million-plus of us, contains a similar multitude. I repeat for the last time: to understand me, you'll have to swallow a world.

See, I told you.

...perhaps, if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque.

How am I doing so far?

I admit it: above all things, I fear absurdity.

Like that makes it less absurd.

Unless, of course, there's no such thing as chance; in which case, we should either-optimistically-get up and cheer, because if everything is planned in advance, then we all have a meaning and are spared the terror of knowing ourselves to be random, without a why; or else, of course, we might-as pessimists-give up right here and now, understanding the futility of thought decision action, since nothing we think makes any difference anyway, things will be as they will. Where, then, is optimism? In fate or in chaos?

Then back to this:
"All of this going back to how the matter we call the human brain was 'somehow' able to acquire autonomy when non-living matter 'somehow' became living matter 'somehow' became conscious matter 'somehow' became self-conscious matter."

There is nothing like a War for the reinvention of lives...

I hear that.

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Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day

Re: Quote of the day