Sign in with Facebook
But there is good reason to believe that in the coming decade, the greatest threat will come from Asia and the world’s most powerful autocracy, the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
“Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.”
―
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people's approval
and you will be their prisoner. Do your work, then step back.
The only path to serenity.”
―
“Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon.”
― Walden or, Life in the Woods
― Walden or, Life in the Woods
“The function of the West is to turn bodies and minds into products. It cannot understand that the rest of the world holds this to be an obscenity, a corruption of our nirvanic nature.”
― Bangkok Haunts
― Bangkok Haunts
“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― A Farewell to Arms
― A Farewell to Arms
“It is precisely to prevent us from thinking too much that society pressurizes us all to get out of bed. In 1993, I went to interview the late radical philosopher and drugs researcher Terence McKenna. I asked him why society doesn’t allow us to be more idle. He replied: I think the reason we don’t organise society in that way can be summed up in the aphorism, “idle hands are the devil’s tool.” In other words, institutions fear idle populations because an Idler is a thinker and thinkers are not a welcome addition to most social situations. Thinkers become malcontents, that’s almost a substitute word for idle, “malcontent.” Essentially, we are all kept very busy . . . under no circumstances are you to quietly inspect the contents of your own mind. Freud called introspection “morbid”—unhealthy, introverted, anti-social, possibly neurotic, potentially pathological. Introspection could lead to that terrible thing: a vision of the truth, a clear image of the horror of our fractured, dissonant world. The”
― How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto
― How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto
Jason’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Jason’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
302 books
|
20 friends
452 books
|
44 friends
825 books
|
805 friends
383 books
|
27 friends
104 books
|
89 friends
53 books
|
44 friends
6 books
|
289 friends
1 book
|
54 friends
More friends…
Polls voted on by Jason
Lists liked by Jason
