Kent Carpenter’s Reviews > Lords of the Fly: Madness, Obsession, and the Hunt for the World Record Tarpon > Status Update

“People become obsessed because of a desire to subject themselves to tests of character, to seek answers about who they are. Obsessions are, essentially, stories that we—the most and least successful among us—invent about ourselves to get through the day, the week, the decades. The stories are about our lives and the meaning that we, and others, bestow upon them. They give people a sense of purpose…”

“..the generationally wealthy had caught on to the game, had come to play. It was no longer about fishing for fun or for some deeper meaning. The world record was the deepest the meaning got. It was no longer romantic. Or it was, but in a different way.”

Man, it’s like Andy Bernard said, sometimes it’s hard to know when you’re in the good old days.

The back of this book says we’re gonna dive into the desperate yearning of the human condition. Here’s the first quote that rings true for me:

“Nostalgia is not only a longing for some lost past but also a mechanism for coping with the present reality.”