bits of wisdom

A monk once went to see the Abbot of the temple and told him "I am very discouraged. What should I do?" The Abbot replied, "encourage others."

From Joan Didion, delightfully tart, in response to being asked by an interviewer about using the good silverware every day: “Well, every day is all there is.”

“There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.”

― Richard Powers, The Overstory

Most people, as they age, become less selfish and more loving. I think this is true. The great Syracuse poet, Hayden Carruth, said, in a poem written near the end of his life, that he was “mostly Love, now.”

GEORGE SAUNDERS: I think ultimately it would be, are you benefiting the people in proximity to you? And truly benefiting them. And that in itself is, how would you know?

EZRA KLEIN: Yeah, how would you know is, I think, often a harder problem that we give it credit for. Why in proximity?

GEORGE SAUNDERS: Well, I think that’s the place to start. And s... See more

I think in a lot of these Eastern systems, the delusion is that we’re trapped inside this little machine that thinks it’s central, and permanent, and all-important and is always thinking it’s about its little victory narrative. But when you step out of it for a second, you see that it’s just a temporary construction of neurology, or karma, or whate... See more

if we look at ourselves, we’re kind of set up to be these little Darwinian survivors. So we’re given this really cool sensory apparatus, and a brain, and everything. And you know, that stuff is there to help us propagate the species. And the intersection between our perceptions, and understanding, and what’s actually true are pretty small and prett... See more