497 books
—
298 voters
Kieran Forster
http://www.kieranforster.com
Inactivity constitutes the human. The inactivity involved in any doing is what makes the doing something genuinely human. Without moments of pause or hesitation, acting deteriorates into blind action and reaction. Without calm, a new
...more
“its retrospection draws attention to the prospective need for life to take on a different form, down to its everyday details, so that the temporal crisis can be averted. It will not mourn the passing of the time of storytelling. The end of narration, the end of history, does not need to bring about a temporal emptiness.”
― The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering
― The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering
“It ensures that all are preoccupied with their own psyches rather than interested in critically questioning their social conditions. The suffering society creates is privatized and psychologized.”
― The Palliative Society: Pain Today
― The Palliative Society: Pain Today
“and what the picture is in reality is this spirit, that’s what a picture really is, neither matter nor soul but both parts at the same time and together they make up what I think of as spirit, and maybe that’s why my good paintings, yes, all good paintings, have something to do with what I, what Christians, call The Holy Spirit, because all good art has this spirit, good pictures, good poems, good music, and what makes it good is not the material, not matter, and it’s not the content, the idea, the thought, no, what makes it good is just this unity of matter and form and soul that becomes spirit, that’s what culture is, probably, he says, it’s probably just one person being like another person that creates a culture, for example wearing a suit and tie, while what art is, yes, art is everyone just being like themselves, and totally themselves”
― Septology
― Septology
“the reason for the feeling that time passes much more quickly than it used to. Due to the temporal dispersal, no experience of duration is possible. Nothing comports time.1 Life is no longer embedded in any ordering structures or coordinates that would found duration. Even things with which we identify are fleeting and ephemeral. Thus, we become radically transient ourselves. The atomization of life goes hand in hand with an atomization of identity. All we have is our self, our little ego. We are subject to a radical loss of space and time, even of world, of being-with. Poverty of world is a phenomenon of dyschronicity. It reduces the human being to a tiny body that is kept healthy at all costs. Otherwise, what would we have? The health of one’s fragile body is a substitute for world and God. Nothing outlasts death. Thus, dying is particularly difficult today. And we age, without becoming old.”
― The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering
― The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering
“The subjugated are not even aware of their subjugation. They think they are free. They exploit themselves, without the need for any external compulsion, and in doing so they believe that they are realizing themselves. Freedom is not curtailed but exploited. The appeal to ‘be free’ produces a compulsion that is far more devastating than the injunction ‘be obedient’.”
― The Palliative Society: Pain Today
― The Palliative Society: Pain Today
Kieran’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Kieran’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Kieran
Lists liked by Kieran













































