Michael Emonds

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The Order of Time
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May 19, 2026 01:46AM

 
The Big Payback: ...
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It Was All a Drea...
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May 06, 2026 08:27AM

 
Book cover for I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World
Metaphor systematically disorganizes the common sense of things—jumbling together the abstract with the concrete, the physical with the psychological, the like with the unlike—and reorganizes it into uncommon combinations.
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Paul Morley
“The twenty-seventh was Blackstar, or simply (the symbol of blackstar) - a suggestion that the A-Z was over, but there was more to come, beyond the known alphabet, beyond ordinary language; a second set of letters, communications, a rebirth. Inside the A to Z, and all the possible combinations of songs, styles, secrets, themes, discoveries, redirections, emotional climaxes, sheer drama, tension, relief, beauty, there was all you needed to know in order to construct and understand the language of Bowie
(re morley's alphabet of bowie albums)”
Paul Morley, The Age of Bowie

Robert M. Sapolsky
“We judge ourselves by our internal motives and everyone else by their external actions. And thus, in considering our own misdeeds, we have more access to mitigating situational information. This is straight out of Us Them. When Thems do something wrong, it's because they're simply rotten. When Us-es do it, it's because of an extenuating circumstance and Me is the most focal Us there is, coming with the most insight into internal state. Thus on this cognitive level, there is no inconsistency or hypocrisy and we might readily perceive a wrong to be mitigated by internal motives in the case of anyone's misdeeds. It's just easier to know those motives when we are the perpetrator. The adverse consequences of this are wide and deep. Moreover, the pull towards judging yourself less harshly than others easily resists the rationality of deterrence. As Ariely writes in his book, 'Overall, cheating is not limited by risk; it is limited by our ability to rationalize the cheating to ourselves.”
Robert M. Sapolsky

Pankaj Mishra
“Herzl wrote The Jewish State, his path-breaking manifesto of Zionism, in 1895 under the influence of Wagner, one of the nineteenth century’s most notorious anti-Semites.”
Pankaj Mishra, Age of Anger: A History of the Present

Albert Camus
“Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism.”
Albert Camus, The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt

Robert Greene
“The ancient Greeks had an appropriate metaphor for this: the rider and the horse. The horse is our emotional nature continually impelling us to move. This horse has tremendous energy and power, but without a rider it cannot be guided; it is wild, subject to predators, and continually heading into trouble. The rider is our thinking self. Through training and practice, it holds the reins and guides the horse, transforming this powerful animal energy into something productive. The one without the other is useless. Without the rider, no directed movement or purpose. Without the horse, no energy, no power. In most people the horse dominates, and the rider is weak. In some people the rider is too strong, holds the reins too tightly, and is afraid to occasionally let the animal go into a gallop. The horse and rider must work together. This means we consider our actions beforehand; we bring as much thinking as possible to a situation before we make a decision. But once we decide what to do, we loosen the reins and enter action with boldness and a spirit of adventure. Instead of being slaves to this energy, we channel it. That is the essence of rationality. As an example of this ideal in action, try to maintain a perfect balance between skepticism (rider) and curiosity (horse). In this mode you are skeptical about your own enthusiasms and those of others. You do not accept at face value people’s explanations and their application of “evidence.” You look at the results of their actions, not what they say about their motivations. But if you take this too far, your mind will close itself off from wild ideas, from exciting speculations, from curiosity itself. You want to retain the elasticity of spirit you had as a child, interested in everything, while retaining the hard-nosed need to verify and scrutinize for yourself all ideas and beliefs. The two can coexist. It is a balance that all geniuses possess.”
Robert Greene, The Laws of Human Nature

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