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thinking about how orpheus turning to look back at eurydice isn’t a sign of mortal frailness but a sign of love

I’m reading a book on Fermi’s paradox and the author points out that even if we detected intelligent life on a planet somewhere, it wouldn’t solve the paradox—given the enormous scales of space and time involved, “Why are there just two planets harbouring intelligent life?” is as great a mystery as “Why is there just one?” Though, finding one other civilisation might solve the problem if they are more advanced than us (and able to communicate with us)—they might have a better idea of what the astrobiological landscape is like and just be able to explain to us why life isn’t more common or why we can’t detect it. The author quickly adds that this would feel like cheating. Being given the explanation rather than figuring it out ourselves. We don’t really want that, do we. I just love scientists. Imagine being a member of an older and more advanced alien civilisation thinking you’re doing these “human” creatures a great kindness by finally putting their minds at ease and explaining why they couldn’t find more signs of life out there—and having them react like “Oh!!…….. we wanted to find the answer ourselves :( ” I would be very charmed.

I’ve been unnaturally happy all day and I am not sure if this is a good thing *throws phone up in the air and laughs idiotically while silly songs play really loudly in the background*

there is something so beautiful about hearing people speak in their first language, their mother tongue. it’s as if you’re hearing them truly speak for the first time and suddenly you see rolling fields, cliffs and mountains, wind running through a forest. every day i wish that i could understand every language of the universe so that it can be more than music to my ears.

Sigh, anyways no one can deny Calvin and Hobbes is the best Sunday strip comic.

Some people never observe anything.  Life just happens to them.  They get by on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift them out of that false serenity.

J. Estanislao Lopez, "What the Fingers Do" [transcript in ALT]

who needs a social life when you have followers who don’t talk to you and you run a blog no one cares about

April 13,

Islets of grey amidst a sea of coral and azure. I could breathe in the beauty of the evening and spend a lifetime in its transitions from russet and gold to the dimness of twilight. Poetry, happiness and peace are in the air for those who care. Beautiful. Beautiful. I can’t repeat it enough times. I am lost and found again. Redemption is sweet.

What more foolish than to believe happiness is the ultimate ambition of a society whose very foundation is built upon a thwarted craving for meaning and its pillars insatisfaction ? Unhappiness and insufficiency are the driving forces behind economic expansion. The horror of contentment, the very notion of it is injurious to capitalism. So, in a way, a constant search for and accumulation of wealth is equated with success and to not deliriously overwork oneself in the name of ambition becomes failure, or as an excellently absurd term puts it ‘wasted potential’. Perhaps the implication here that any ability to create or produce is disqualified to be of any value unless it is yielded in a way enabling it to be monetised is collectively unacknowledged by society, or consciously endorsed. A bit of prodding into this brings one to the despaired question. What indeed is humankind’s core want? Or in other words, what would compel a thinking person to serve bureaucracy if their fundamental need were met and a decent standard of living provided?

Also another thing that bothers me is the quasi-philosophical belief that suffering is somehow superior to happiness in both meaning and virtue. The dreadfulness of pain masquerades as intellectualism and, to borrow a phrase from LeGuin, the banality of evil is wrapped up in folds of mystery. The ideology that ‘suffering should be endured for the potential of a reward later’ (and not to seek any meaning in itself, which, although questionable is a manifold better reason to engage in masochism) is one that is encouraged and spread by those in power. This is an abuse of religion and an exploitation of people’s values done more or less solely for the purpose of keeping people perceived beneath them in check. This state of affairs is more prevalent than it appears to be at first glance and is a disgrace to the few who actually work for the welfare of people. This has been a rant. Thank you.