Jacob

“We started this book talking about moths. Moths navigate using moonlight, and in the world they were programmed to live in, that system worked fine. The issue for today’s moths is that their environment has changed but their programming has not, so now they spend their nights doing pointless circles around your porch light. I’m pretty sure this is our situation too. Human nature is a specific software program optimized for a specific purpose: survival in a small tribe, a long time ago. The modern world is nothing like the environment we were made for. This is why we made liberal democracies. Remember this? The liberal democracy is an artificial environment, carefully crafted to both contain human nature and convert it into an engine of progress. Like all environments, it’s a behavior-shaping mechanism.”
― Tim Urban, What's Our Problem?: A Self-Help Book for Societies

“Maybe we invented metaphor as a response to pain. Maybe we needed to give shape to the opaque, deep-down pain that evades both sense and senses.”
― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down

“It's a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People