Edward Pashkov > Recent Status Updates

Book 3 was a bit all over the place and confused me towards the end. But hey Life, The Universe, and Everything is head spinning.

Almost at 420! This is a wild story. I like it.

I made it through Marx's theories and the Russian revolutions into modern Marxism. Although thinking they were clever, Marx's theories were a product of his time and didn't age well with modern capitalism and economics. His theories of Alienation still apply. Overall this is an okay introduction to Marxism (with fun cartoons!).

This is a great little graphic introduction to Marxist thought. I knew of Marxist theory before this goes into nuance and tells the continuing tale of how Marxism evolved into today's time with modern thinkers (I didn't get to that part yet).

Taking a break with this series to start on a Marxism book in prep for a Žižek talk later this month. I read the first two books in the story. Life, the Universe, and Everything is next! I'm looking forward to getting back into this story.

Ah. The plot thickens and thickens!

Utterly hilarious and mostly harmless.

What an amazing story. What a funny way to tell it!

Today I embark on the adventure of a lifetime and as my guide I take one book; The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Moved on to Silence after adventures in Emptiness. Love how this book is structured. Reduction. Emptiness. Silence....

Great book! Love the polemical writing style. I can feel the writer is a minimalist, but not the Marie Kondo kind. But a mindful minimalist who knows the deep historical roots of the movement that consistently evolves and erases itself in the process.

The story of Sisyphus is on Pg. 119. I'm almost there. What can I even say? Does it really matter?

Book is starting to make more sense. In short: Life is meaningless. Humans search for meaning in a meaningless world is absurd. The absurd mindset exists between humans and the world. Focusing too much on Meaninglessness or pure Reason misses the absurd. Killing ourselves is not a great solution to meaninglessness. To become radically aware is. To become so free is. To experience as much of life as possible is.

Barely making it through this book. My god. Am I stupid or is this unintelligible? Or both!

Really just slugging through this book. Every sentence needs two readings. Ugh.

This book explores a fundemental question: is life worth living when it all may be meaningless? I was sitting through a Crisis intervention lecture which was informing us of resources to provide folks in crisis to promote life, and a thought crossed my mind: but why save life? Wanting to save a life is making some implicit statement about life's value, namely that to be alive is more valuble than to be dead. Why?

Reading each page twice!

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Really enjoying this book. I can see fragments of my life in it. What does that mean? You'll have to wait till the end.

I’m very engaged. Reading this puts me on the edge of my seat. I know something is bound to happen to Winston I just have no clue when or how or because of what. Just wrapped up part one. Enjoying the book very much. I’d go so far as to say it’s expertly written. And hilarious at times. Orwell’s critiques cut to the bone!

Gripping read.

A well-structured argument for being intentional with technology use. I'm in the part of Newport describing and elaborating on his theory of Digital Minimalism with three principles: Clutter is costly, Optimization, and... in an effort to get us to question WHAT technology we use and HOW we use it.

Devastating book.

Emotionally devastating book. Beautifully told story of how challenging life was just 70 years ago. How grateful I am to be living today.

Interesting so far. Fast-paced and multi-layered storytelling is cool (i.e., the narrator is both Fugui who is an old man telling his story and the present-day narrator remembers/comments about the story in italic to break up the story)

Going great. Somehow I make it back to complex and chaotic systems. It’s fascinating. Dave tells a great story, includes math in it and inspires us to see things in interesting ways. What more can you ask for?

I like the way Sumpter weaves a story with math. He gives us a reason of why we should care about, currently, statistics. Also provides an entertaining story about Ron Fisher, the father of experimental statistical methodology.

A beautiful work of art. Nothing short of breathtaking. Profoundly saddening and sobering in the best way possible.