Luca Parodi

“[The Universe] does not care, and even with all our science there are some disasters that we can not avert. All evil and good is petty before nature. Personally, we take comfort from this, that there is a universe to admire that can not be twisted to villainy or good, but which simply is.”
― Vernor Vinge, A Fire Upon the Deep

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The weak breeze whispers nothing
the water screams sublime.
His feet shift, teeter-totter
deep breaths, stand back, it’s time.

Toes untouch the overpass
soon he’s water-bound.
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
the view from halfway down.

A little wind, a summer sun
a river rich and regal.
A flood of fond endorphins
brings a calm that knows no equal.

You’re flying now, you see things
much more clear than from the ground.
It's all okay, or it would be
were you not now halfway down.

Thrash to break from gravity
what now could slow the drop?
All I’d give for toes to touch
the safety back at top.

But this is it, the deed is done
silence drowns the sound.
Before I leaped I should've seen
the view from halfway down.

I really should’ve thought about
the view from halfway down.
I wish I could've known about
the view from halfway down—”
― Raphael Bob-Waksberg, BoJack Horseman: The Art Before the Horse

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Letters to a Young Contrarian