Human Person > Recent Status Updates

“…he smelled his own uncancelled stink again, aware that it had intensified since morning… the putrid perfume of the cemetery air with its pretension to windblown purity, all this lay in foul encrustation atop the private pestilence of his being. When he threw himself onto Gerald’s grave, the uprush of a polluted life all but asphyxiated him.”

He smelling so bad, in earnest

To paraphrase: All trees have their own character and personalities, as evidenced by the decisions they make….. AND SOME TREES ARE STUPID (the author literally calls some trees “foolish”)

Adichie’s characters feel luminous thanks to her deeply emotive and detailed storytelling. There is a lot of detail in her writing, but it never feels tedious or pedantic. Completely immersive. Very tender and beautiful until the story reached its point of conflict and her talent for evoking human emotions is displayed in another, opposite way that is difficult for me to sit with.

Yuval Noah Harari mention #2: Harari’s Just-so story regarding the domestication of wheat, functioning as a sort of analogy for the Garden of Eden in which it is wheat, rather than a serpent, beckoning humans to become agriculturalists; in both of these cases they condemn themselves to imprisonment (headlong in2 thee chains if u will)

Mentions animal study involving the hypothalamus-KNDy system that serves as evidence that GnRH pulses in the brain will retrofit to follow a female pattern when male gonads and hormones are replaced, yet provides no citation for this study. In my opinion, to mention this study without providing a source is irresponsible, regardless of the fact that your target audience may largely consist of laypeople.

SEVEN PAGES IN AND RAPT I LOVE PERIODS THEY ARE THE MOST INTERESTING THING IN THE WORLD I thought I knew quite a lot about menstruation and already have discovered something new I love not knowing everything the world is a beautiful place bc I get to learn new things all of the time punctuation is for fools witness my run on sentence

Meandering, boring, 90% finished and don’t know what the point of this book is supposed to be other than to simply try to convince me that the narrator is interesting? I’m not convinced.

This is the most interesting book in the entire world

More than halfway into the book, feels a bit tedious for the most part due to its pedantic descriptions and relative uneventfulness. Kinda wonder if the plot structure will be anything like The Stranger by Camus where much of the book is boring and only is really interesting and holds all of its substance in the very end. Wouldn’t have been able to read in print

“Poverty Point makes the Anatolian complex of Göbekli Tepe look like little more than a potbelly hill- which is, in fact, what Göbekli Tepe means in Turkish”

Cannot believe I correctly remembered what Göbekli Tepe means and what language it is,,,, my mind

Tried reading in print a few years ago, didn’t grip me. Enjoying the audiobook more. I think I didn’t have the patience for the minutiae of its descriptions, but in this format I don’t think I mind at all

Narrator describes learning social scripts and performances as a child which I found interesting

“There are more life forms in a handful of forest soil than there are people on the planet. A mere teaspoonful contains many miles of fungal filaments. All these work the soil, transform it, and make it so valuable for the trees.”

The author is illuminating the fact that much of the larger fauna are of minimal consequence to the health of a forest, particularly compared to the microcosmos of the soil. Cried.

“But why are trees such social beings? Why do they share food with their own species, and sometimes even go so far as to nourish their competitors? The reasons are the same as for human communities: there are advantages to working together. A tree is not a forest”

Ah yes, another piece of media which supports my rabid radical leftism and serves as confirmation bias

The moment where Paul is granted the name “Muad’Dib” gave me chills while peeling a clove of garlic

Fantastic narrator, enveloping atmospheric soundtrack

Only 2% more since last update which is a sin to log however I must capture this quote:

“…all such authors are really saying is that they themselves cannot personally imagine any other way that precious objects might move about. *But lack of imagination is not itself an argument.* It’s almost as if these authors are afraid to suggest anything original”

LMAOOOO

“We are projects of collective self-creation. What if we approached human history that way? What if we treat people, from the beginning, as imaginative, intelligent, playful creatures who deserve to be understood as such?”

GOES FUCKING CRAZY I LOVE THIS BOOK GLAD TO BE ENGAGING WITH IT AGAIN

“No more terrible a disaster could befall your people than for them to fall into the hands of a hero”