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.
Clipping
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books > Sea of Tranquility: A Novel (Emily St. John Mandel)
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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.
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books > Talking to My Daughter About the Economy: Or, How Capitalism Works--And How It Fails (Yanis Varoufakis)
If you think about it, nothing is reproduced with greater ease than the faith of the haves that they deserve what they get. Since childhood you have been caught up in a vicious logical contradiction that you barely noticed. On the one hand, you were appalled by the idea that some kids cry themselves to sleep because they are hungry. On the other, you were thoroughly convinced (like all children) that your toys, your clothes and your house were all rightfully yours. Our minds automatically equate ‘I have X’ with ‘I deserve X’.
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books > The Anomaly: A Novel (Hervé le Tellier)
What point is there in knowing? We should always favor mystery over science. Ignorance is a good traveling companion, and the truth never produces happiness. We might as well be simulated and happy.
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books > The Children of Men (P. D. James)
“But what do you believe? I don’t just mean religion. What are you sure of?” “That once I was not and that now I am. That one day I shall no longer be.”