“We have an infinite capacity for self interest, yet the infinite has absolutely no interest in us”
―
―
“Scientifically, I know beginnings don't exist. The world is made of energy, which is neither created or destroyed. Everything she is was here before me. Everything she was will remain. Her existence touches both my past and my future at one point- infinity.
Lifelines aren't lines at all. They are more like circles.
Its safe to start anywhere and the story will curve its way back to the starting point. Eventually.
In other words, it doesn't matter where I begin. It doesn't change the end.”
― Love and Other Unknown Variables
Lifelines aren't lines at all. They are more like circles.
Its safe to start anywhere and the story will curve its way back to the starting point. Eventually.
In other words, it doesn't matter where I begin. It doesn't change the end.”
― Love and Other Unknown Variables
“I believe, if there is some sort of higher power, the universe is it. Whenever religious people ask me where the universe came from, I tell them that it has always been here, and was never created. The Big Bang theory is based on the fact that the universe is expanding right now. And if you rewind the tape, the universe appears to be shrinking. If you rewind the tape far enough, eventually the universe must be just one singular point. Or so the theory goes. But what if the universe has not always been expanding? What if it's pulsating, and one pulse takes trillions of years, and right now the universe is inhaling, and before that, trillions of years ago, it was exhaling?”
―
―
“Unable to sleep after the others had drowsed off, I crawled out of the tent and lay on the ground, looking at the sky. Now and then, a shooting star would trace a bright arc across the heavens. The longer I watched, though, the more nervous it made me. There were simply too many stars, and the sky was too vast and deep. A huge, overpowering foreign object, it surrounded me, enveloped me, and made me feel almost dizzy. Until that moment, I had always thought that the earth on which I stood was a solid object that would last forever. Or rather, I had never thought about such a thing at all. I had simply taken it for granted.”
― The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
― The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
“But what you’re calling poetry is what everything is. It’s not even poetry — it’s seeing. These materialists are blind. You told me they say space is infinite. Where do they see that in space?”
And I, disconcerted: “But don’t you think of space as infinite? Can’t you conceive of space as infinite?”
“I don’t conceive of anything as being infinite. How could I conceive of anything as being infinite?”
“But, man,” I said, “Imagine space. Beyond that space is more space, and beyond that more, and then more, and more... It never ends...“
“Why?” asked my master Caeiro.”
―
And I, disconcerted: “But don’t you think of space as infinite? Can’t you conceive of space as infinite?”
“I don’t conceive of anything as being infinite. How could I conceive of anything as being infinite?”
“But, man,” I said, “Imagine space. Beyond that space is more space, and beyond that more, and then more, and more... It never ends...“
“Why?” asked my master Caeiro.”
―
Spencer’s 2024 Year in Books
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