Because we inhabit, simultaneously, both standpoints—the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom—there is always potentially a gap between what we do and what we ought to do, between the way things are and the way they ought to be.
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“Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.”
― Calypso
― Calypso
“Those stories always leave something out,” Tress said. “It’s really not a problem that someone needs to be saved. Everyone needs help. It’s hard to be the person who makes trouble, but the thing is, everyone makes trouble. How would we help anyone if nobody ever needed help?”
― Tress of the Emerald Sea
― Tress of the Emerald Sea
“A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. “My bad,” for example, and “I’ve got your back” and “You go, girlfriend.” They’re the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.”
― Calypso
― Calypso
“Painful or passionate, surreal or sublime, we cherish those little rocks of peak experience, polishing them with the ever-smoothing touch of recycled proxy living. In so doing—like pagans praying to a sculpted mud figure—we make of our memories the gods which judge our current lives.”
― Tress of the Emerald Sea
― Tress of the Emerald Sea
Ben’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ben’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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