Martin

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Martin.


The Human Planet:...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
The Spell of the ...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Loading...
David Lipsky
“David Foster Wallace: I think the reason why people behave in an ugly manner is that it’s really scary to be alive and to be human, and people are really really afraid. And that the reasons…

That the fear is the basic condition, and there are all kinds of reasons for why we’re so afraid. But the fact of the matter is, is that, is that the job that we’re here to do is to learn how to live in a way that we’re not terrified all the time. And not in a position of using all kinds of different things, and using people to keep that kind of terror at bay. That is my personal opinion.

Well for me, as an American male, the face I’d put on the terror is the dawning realization that nothing’s enough, you know? That no pleasure is enough, that no achievement is enough. That there’s a kind of queer dissatisfaction or emptiness at the core of the self that is unassuageable by outside stuff. And my guess is that that’s been what’s going on, ever since people were hitting each other over the head with clubs. Though describable in a number of different words and cultural argots. And that our particular challenge is that there’s never been more and better stuff comin’ from the outside, that seems temporarily to sort of fill the hole or drown out the hole.

Personally, I believe that if it’s assuageable in any way it’s by internal means. And I don’t know what that means. I think it’s fine in some way. I think it’s probably assuageable by internal means. I think those internal means have to be earned and developed, and it has something to do with, um, um, the pop-psych phrase is lovin’ yourself.

It’s more like, if you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do this.”
David Lipsky, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

W. Somerset Maugham
“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.”
W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Henri Bergson
“Pour un être conscient, exister consiste à changer, changer à se mûrir, se mûrir à se créer indéfiniment soi-même.”
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution

Fran Lebowitz
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
Fran Lebowitz, The Fran Lebowitz Reader

Yamamoto Tsunetomo
“Be true to the thought of the moment and avoid distraction. Other than continuing to exert yourself, enter into nothing else, but go to the extent of living single thought by single thought.”
Tsunetomo Yamamoto, Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai

220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 309598 members — last activity 4 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
year in books
Trevor
1,851 books | 4,426 friends

Fergus,...
5,785 books | 4,783 friends

Sean Ba...
1,383 books | 3,674 friends

Rodri A...
1 book | 1 friend

Alex Fr...
0 books | 5 friends

Ivan Wi...
40 books | 4 friends

Dario P...
9 books | 35 friends

werther
3 books | 9 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by Martin

Lists liked by Martin