159 books
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135 voters
“Your cynicism lies in your willing abuse of others to consolidate your superiority over them. My cynicism is in regard to humanity’s wilful blindness with respect to its own extinction.’
‘Without that wilful blindness there is naught but despair.’
‘Oh, I am not that cynical. In fact, I do not agree at all. Maybe when the wilful blindness runs its inevitable course, there will be born wilful wisdom, the revelation of seeing things as they are.’
‘Things? To which things are you referring, old man?’
‘Why, that everything of true value is, in fact, free.”
― Reaper's Gale
‘Without that wilful blindness there is naught but despair.’
‘Oh, I am not that cynical. In fact, I do not agree at all. Maybe when the wilful blindness runs its inevitable course, there will be born wilful wisdom, the revelation of seeing things as they are.’
‘Things? To which things are you referring, old man?’
‘Why, that everything of true value is, in fact, free.”
― Reaper's Gale
“...the natural force, the core of the struggle to exist is the desire to not just survive, but thrive. And to thrive is to feed on victims, ever more victims...”
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“Our notions about happiness entrap us. We forget that they are just ideas. Our idea of happiness can prevent us from actually being happy. We fail to see the opportunity for joy that is right in front of us when we are caught in a belief that happiness should take a particular form.”
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“So, how many generations of Indebted need to suffer – even as the civilized trappings multiply and abound on all sides, with an ever-increasing proportion of those material follies out of their financial reach? How many, before we all collectively stop and say, “Aaii! That’s enough! No more suffering, please! No more hunger, no more war, no more inequity!” Well, as far as I can see, there are never enough generations. We just scrabble on, and on, devouring all within reach, including our own kind, as if it was nothing more than the undeniable expression of some natural law, and as such subject to no moral context, no ethical constraint – despite the ubiquitous and disingenuous blathering over-invocation of those two grand notions.”
― Reaper's Gale
― Reaper's Gale
“The prospect of future lives in remote heavens as a compensation for the inadequacy of our present lives is a bad tradeoff for losing out on the present.”
― How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo
― How to Raise an Ox: Zen Practice as Taught in Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo
Andy’s 2025 Year in Books
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