I could almost hear it in my mind in Their dead voice: “If deaths must be, let them be _____.” What adjective would it have been? What language? Something more honest than ‘good,’ less pretentious than ‘just,’ the opposite of ‘pointless’ but not pretending death could ever be ‘alright.’ ‘Examined,’ maybe? ‘Willed’? A tingle washed through me. So few prayers are in the Prince’s power to grant, but here was one I pray myself: if I’m shot, let me be shot for what I fight for, not for some mistake.
Clipping
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books > Perhaps the Stars (Ada Palmer)
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books > Welcome to the Monkey House: The Special Edition (Kurt Vonnegut,Gregory D. Sumner)
“Think of it this way,” said Helmholtz. “Our aim is to make the world more beautiful than it was when we came into it. It can be done. You can do it.” A small cry of despair came from Jim Donnini. It was meant to be private, but it pierced every ear with its poignancy. “How?” said Jim. “Love yourself,” said Helmholtz, “and make your instrument sing about it. A-one, a-two, a-three.” Down came his baton.
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books > Contact (Carl Sagan)
I maintain that the cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest motive for scientific research. -ALBERT EINSTEIN
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books > Sea of Tranquility: A Novel (Emily St. John Mandel)
Edwin is capable of action but prone to inertia. He likes sitting by his window. There’s a constant movement of people and ships. He doesn’t want to leave, so he stays.
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books > Another Now: Dispatches From an Alternative Present (Yanis Varoufakis)
According to myth, Gyges was a poor shepherd in the ancient kingdom of Lydia who one day chanced upon a magic ring. By rotating the ring on his finger, he could make himself invisible. So he walked into the palace, seduced the queen, murdered the king and installed himself as ruler of Lydia. In The Republic, Plato has Socrates ask: if you discovered such a ring, would it be rational not to use it to do as you please? Costa remembered Socrates’ answer well: anyone who uses the power of the ring to get what he wants enslaves himself to his own appetites.
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books > Another Now: Dispatches From an Alternative Present (Yanis Varoufakis)
According to myth, Gyges was a poor shepherd in the ancient kingdom of Lydia who one day chanced upon a magic ring. By rotating the ring on his finger, he could make himself invisible. So he walked into the palace, seduced the queen, murdered the king and installed himself as ruler of Lydia. In The Republic, Plato has Socrates ask: if you discovered such a ring, would it be rational not to use it to do as you please? Costa remembered Socrates’ answer well: anyone who uses the power of the ring to get what he wants enslaves himself to his own appetites. Happiness, and not just morality, hinges on one’s capacity not to use the ring’s exorbitant power.
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books > The Gone World (Tom Sweterlitsch)
And some people had left their bodies entirely, had become immortal, living as waves of light—but once they could no longer die, the immortals begged for death, because life without the passage of time becomes meaningless. It used to be thought that hell was a lack of God, but hell is a lack of death.”
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books > The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One (Hanzi Freinacht)
Political metamodernism is built around one central insight. The king’s road to a good future society is personal development and psychological growth. And humans develop much better if you fulfill their innermost psychological needs. So we’re looking for a “deeper” society; a civilization more socially apt, emotionally intelligent and existentially mature.
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books > Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki)
Catalin Matía would smile whenever someone described great music as divine. To him, that was nonsense. Great music is all about weakness, uncertainty, mortality—what does Heaven know of these?
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books > Light From Uncommon Stars (Ryka Aoki)
Katrina didn’t try to block their words; she had given up on that long ago. Instead, Katrina leaned her head against the window and listened … to the voices of the women, the drone of the engine, the roar of a passing truck. She listened to the pain in her ribs, the throbbing keeping time with each swerve and a bump in the road. It was all music. Let it be music. If she could make it music, Katrina knew there would a place where she could breathe. A place where she could rest.