“If you look at your average contemporary person, the potential for tragedy is immense. The people and things we love and value are strewn across the globe. Any number of health disasters can befall you or them.
The truth is depressing. We are going to die, most likely after illness; all our friends will likewise die; we are tiny insignificant dots on a tiny planet. Perhaps with the advent of broad intelligence and foresight comes the need for confabulation and self-deception to keep depression and its consequent lethargy at bay. There needs to be a basic denial of our finitude and insignificance in the larger scene. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah just to get out of bed in the morning.”
― Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation
The truth is depressing. We are going to die, most likely after illness; all our friends will likewise die; we are tiny insignificant dots on a tiny planet. Perhaps with the advent of broad intelligence and foresight comes the need for confabulation and self-deception to keep depression and its consequent lethargy at bay. There needs to be a basic denial of our finitude and insignificance in the larger scene. It takes a certain amount of chutzpah just to get out of bed in the morning.”
― Brain Fiction: Self-Deception and the Riddle of Confabulation
“I'd woken up early, and I took a long time getting ready to exist.”
― The Book of Disquiet
― The Book of Disquiet
“Nothing is more evident than that modern capitalism is just as subversive as Marxism. The materialistic view of life on which both systems are based is identical; both of their ideals are qualitatively identical, including the premises connected to a world the centre of which is constituted of technology, science, production, "productivity," and "consumption." And as long as we only talk about economic classes, profit, salaries, and production, and as long as we believe that real human progress is determined by a particular system of distribution of wealth and goods, and that, generally speaking, human progress is measured by the degree of wealth or indigence—then we are not even close to what is essential...”
― Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist
― Men Among the Ruins: Post-War Reflections of a Radical Traditionalist
“A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress.”
― The Beautiful and Damned
― The Beautiful and Damned
Dalia’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Dalia’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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