Surfacing a (rewritten) comment from a thread:
Some people believe the answer to political corruption is a window into the money flows of politicians. I like this because it makes it a little less likely certain kinds of people will go into politics, but I'm less sanguine more transparency leads to less corruption. I've lived in small towns where EVERYONE knew what was going on. And it still went on.
Ever wonder how people were able to go on living their mundane lives as best they could while the Nazis were taking over Germany or in the days of the London Blitz or the US Civil War or Caesar's return to Rome or one of the Mongol invasions or any of the other stupendous historical events so consequential, so immense, as to eclipse any concern for petty things?
Well, now you know.
A quotation from Thomas Carlyle
No man lives without jostling and being jostled; in all ways he has to elbow himself through the world, giving and receiving offense.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Essay (1837-12-06), “On Sir Walter Scott,” The London and Westminster Review, No. 12/55, Art. 2 (1838-01)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/carlyle-thomas/66391…
Václav Havel
> "If the main pillar of the system is living a lie, then it is not surprising that the fundamental threat to it is living in truth."
We are here just for a spell and then pass on … So get a few laughs and do the best you can. Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Inscription, Oklahoma Route 66 Museum, Clinton, Oklahoma
Sourcing, notes, expanded text: wist.info/rogers-will/5918/
Swift falsifies his picture of the world by refusing to see anything in human life except dirt, folly and wickedness, but the part which he abstracts from the whole does exist, and it is something which we all know about while shrinking from mentioning it. Part of our minds — in any normal person it is the dominant part — believes that man is a noble animal and life is worth living: but there is also a sort of inner self which at least intermittently stands aghast at the horror of existence.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-09), “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels,” Polemic, No. 5
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/orwell-george/76060/
A quotation from Marcus Aurelius
This mortal life is a little thing, lived in a little corner of the earth; and little, too, is the longest fame to come — dependent as it is on a succession of fast-perishing little men who have no knowledge even of their own selves, much less of one long dead and gone.
[μικρὸν μὲν οὖν ὃ ζῇ ἕκαστος: μικρὸν δὲ τὸ τῆς γῆς γωνίδιον ὅπου ζῇ: μικρὸν δὲ καὶ ἡ μηκίστη ὑστεροφημία καὶ αὕτη δὲ κατὰ διαδοχὴν ἀνθρωπαρίων τάχιστα τεθνηξομένων καὶ οὐκ εἰδότων οὐδὲ ἑαυτοὺς οὐδέ γε τὸν πρόπαλαι τεθνηκότα.]
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
Meditations [To Himself; Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν], Book 3, ch. 10 (3.10) (AD 161-180) [tr. Staniforth (1964)]
Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/marcus-aureleus/7602…
A quotation from Ella Wheeler Wilcox
“He is mad as a hare, poor fellow,
And should be in chains” you say,
I haven’t a doubt of your statement,
But who isn’t mad, I pray?
Why, the world is a great asylum,
And the people are all insane,
Gone daft with pleasure or folly,
Or crazed with passion and pain.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author, poet, temperance advocate, spiritualist
Poem (1876), “All Mad,” st. 1, Maurine and Other Poems
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/wilcox-ella-wheeler/…
The Beautiful Messiness of Being Human: Exploring Emotions, Mind, and Connection
#EmotionalContagion #BrainPlasticity #CognitivePsychology #HumanExperience #Jung #Existentialism #Psychoanalysis #MentalHealth #MindBodyConnection #HumanCondition #Curiosity #Connection #MentalWellness #PersonalGrowth #EmotionalIntelligence
#ukrain could become an issue for the governments because, thanks to the commercial significance of black sea
For #bangladesh disruption it was textile
When it was about oil #arab countries were simply attacked
So #humancondition #history #religion re just about tapping the human sentiments to convince the people of country for war , while people may care for system the real issues re different and they re rarely rarely about people
"The affairs of the world have nothing to do with me", said the billions of people who make up the world.
An optimist isn’t necessarily a blithe, slightly sappy whistler in the dark of our time. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) American historian, academic, author, social activist
Essay (2004-09-02), “The Optimism of Uncertainty,” The Nation
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/zinn-howard/35668/
I didn’t want to work. It was as simple as that. I distrusted work, disliked it. I thought it was a very bad thing that the human race had unfortunately invented for itself.
Agatha Christie (1890-1976) English writer
Endless Night, ch. 3 (1967)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/christie-agatha/7532…
shedded skin, head I
study in bronze
2024
bronze and gravel
(unique)
15,7 x 9,3 x 10,6 cm
⸻
#bronze #powdery #sculpture #head #enprofil #sheddedskin #gravel #humancondition #tactile #sensory #senses #natality #hannaharendt #vanvincent #homoparasitus #contemporaryart #contemporaryartist @vanvincent
He was about to urge her to let well alone and trust heaven to do justice, but then he had a sudden vision of heaven’s justice as the Church sometimes applied it, in good but dreadful faith, with all the virtuous narrowness and pitilessness of minds blind and deaf to the infinite variety of humankind, its failings, and aspirations, and needs, and forgetful of all the Gospel reminders concerning publicans and sinners.
Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter, who also wrote under the names John Redfern, Jolyon Carr, Peter Benedict]
The Holy Thief, ch. 11 (1992)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/peters-ellis/74946/
I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet
Poem (1855), “Song of Myself,” sec. 32, l. 684ff, Leaves of Grass
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/whitman-walt/74677/
Dessous roared with laughter. “Telman! I can’t believe I’m having to tell you this, but life isn’t fair!”
“No, the world isn’t fair, the universe isn’t fair. Physics, chemistry and mathematics, they aren’t fair. Or unfair, for that matter. Fairness is an idea, and only conscious creatures have ideas. That’s us. We have ideas about right and wrong. We invent the idea of justice so that we can judge whether something is good or bad. We develop morality. We create rules to live by and call them laws, all to make life more fair.”
Iain Banks (1954-2013) Scottish author
The Business, ch. 5 (1999)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/banks-iaian/74470/
“I’m not sad just because of Snoop. I realized our mortal condition and I was terrified. Hold me, caress me, kiss me. Don’t leave me alone… ever,” she finished sobbing harder.
Sarah was no longer a girl and was now in her second year of studying Psychology. She had been confronted with the death of a loved one and remembered my age. That’s why she panicked.
“Our finitude is very difficult to accept, but ending as Snoop ended is an extraordinary fact. Think he had time to socialize with the children, and they had the privilege of getting to know him. And finally he needed to rest, in peace.”
-- Alice Enamour, *Marianne - mylove*, 3rd vol. of #mynovel #Marianne (very soon will be published)
"We have come more and more under the dominance of mechanics and sacrificed living humanity to the dead rhythm of the machine without most of us even being conscious of the monstrosity of the procedure. Hence we frequently deal with such matters with indifference and in cold blood as if we handled dead things and not the destinies of men."
— Rudolf Rocker
