It has always been the individual who calls the group to a larger vision, who insists on compassion and fair play. When the goal of the group ceases to be the individual, that group goes into decline.”
The Sun Magazine
Time is the essence, time is the season, time ain’t no reason, got no time to slow. Burn out the day, burn out the night, I can’t see no reason to put up a fight. I’m livin’ for givin’ the devil his due.”
Blue Öyster Cult
Today we are blessed with, and can appreciate, millions of colors. Before the cones of our retina could distinguish between #EFFing blue and pink #FEE, who could say those colors existed at all?
We are organs of a larger organism. It knows us, although we do not know it. I’m a vessel of whatever that larger organism is, its instrument, rather than the source of the scenes. So a lot of what I do is try to get out of the way. That’s the way I work on my writing.
Life’s Work by David Milch (2022)
Malignant narcissism gained public attention in recent years – the intersection of antisocial-psychopathic personality and narcissism suffused with sadistic aggression.
It is not sufficient to feel important & special; someone else must be demeaned or vanquished. @JonathanShedler
Passion needs to be cultivated.
What is the best thing you can think of? Let your natural passion for existence extend to include that.
P.S. You are more likely to think of something better while you are doing something productive rather than while you are “just waiting”.
Rebirthing by Leonard & Laut
Cells in embryos make their way across a steep “developmental landscape” to their eventual fate.
Embryonic cells continuously monitor their changing surroundings and make small corrective adjustments, optimizing as development proceeds, locking in on their planned identity relatively late.
Processing positional information makes genes variously switch on and off throughout the embryo, giving cells distinct identities based on their location. (Some cells unfortunately take the wrong paths and are unable to get back on track.)
All the information is there in the landscape and processing that information effectively may be the phenomenon that makes a bunch of loosely stuck-together atoms behave like the thing we call life.
Had I been like a man living in a wood from which he knows there is no exit, I could have lived; but I was like one lost in a wood who, horrified at having lost his way, rushes about wishing to find the road.”
-Leo Tolstoy
I think that the BBC’s attitude toward the show while it was in production was very similar to that which Macbeth had toward murdering people:
and still no end in sight.
Douglas Adams about the creation of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
Great achievements once considered impossible were accomplished with the help of other people (and other animals).
Remote work has isolated people. Downtowns in the last century were characterized as industry hubs. The new lure for cities are the central social districts. Restaurants, coffee shops, and coworking spaces add robust connectivity to a city’s economy.