"Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts as a last resource pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and happy to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority."
—Arthur Schopenhauer
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
— Maya Angelou
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people.
~Arthur Schopenhauer
(Thank you @DarkLordChungus for the intro to Schopenhauer)
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: "When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life." - John Lennon
Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.
Fredric Jameson
"The days of man are as of grass. Which the sun shall wither, the wind shall pass over it, and the place thereof shall know it no more." - Psalm 103:15-17
"If you took Xi Jinping, turned him upside down and shook him, would the World Health Organization fall out of his pocket?" - question asked at US Senate Appropriations Hearing. (Xi Jinping is the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party)
"People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use."
— Søren Kierkegaard
Audacity IS at an all-time high! As well as cheek, nerve, gumption and gall Boundaries are certainly needed more than ever.
Fetus: I’m not going out there! Never! Dr. Ying: I assure you, child, the world outside is not an eternal night in a winter storm. There are days of bright sunshine and spring breeze. Life isn’t easy, but there is much joy and happiness as well. Mother: Dr. Ying is right! Your mama remembers many happy moments, like the day I left home: When I walked out of Xitao, the sun had just risen. The breeze was cool on my face, and the twittering of many birds filled my ears. I felt like a bird that had just escaped its cage.… And that first time after I earned my own money in the city! I walked into the supermarket, and I was filled with bliss, endless possibilities all around me. Can’t you feel my joy, baby? Fetus: Mama, I remember both of those times very clearly, but they’re horrible memories. The day you left the village, you had to hike thirty kilometers through the mountains to catch a bus in the nearest town. The trail was rough and hard, and you had only sixteen yuan in your pocket; what were you going to do after you had spent them all? Who knew what you were going to find in the world outside? And that supermarket? It was like an ant’s nest, crowded with people pressing on each other. So many strangers, so utterly terrifying.… Dr. Ying (after a long silence): I now understand why evolution shut off the activation of inherited memories in humans.
Fetus: I’m not going out there! Never!
Dr. Ying: I assure you, child, the world outside is not an eternal night in a winter storm. There are days of bright sunshine and spring breeze. Life isn’t easy, but there is much joy and happiness as well.
Mother: Dr. Ying is right! Your mama remembers many happy moments, like the day I left home: When I walked out of Xitao, the sun had just risen. The breeze was cool on my face, and the twittering of many birds filled my ears. I felt like a bird that had just escaped its cage.… And that first time after I earned my own money in the city! I walked into the supermarket, and I was filled with bliss, endless possibilities all around me. Can’t you feel my joy, baby?
Fetus: Mama, I remember both of those times very clearly, but they’re horrible memories. The day you left the village, you had to hike thirty kilometers through the mountains to catch a bus in the nearest town. The trail was rough and hard, and you had only sixteen yuan in your pocket; what were you going to do after you had spent them all? Who knew what you were going to find in the world outside? And that supermarket? It was like an ant’s nest, crowded with people pressing on each other. So many strangers, so utterly terrifying.…
Dr. Ying (after a long silence): I now understand why evolution shut off the activation of inherited memories in humans.
—The Weight of Memories, by Cixin Liu
"The future cannot be designed, it has to be discovered" - Bret Weinstein
"We should not judge people in the past based on the standards of today, because that would mean our actions now should be based on the standards in the future. And no-one can know what those standards will be."
Today's app "quote" to me
You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Mary Oliver Wild Geese