Цитатите, които ни създадоха

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We want so much from those who love us: friendship, understanding, conversation, and kindness—and companionship, and sex, and children, and even money or someone to cook dinner or mow the grass. Sometimes, at the bottom of things, when we are most in love, we want our partners to be for us the same as God.
But only in our deepest part are we divine, and most of us live within our smaller selves most of the time. And so who can be the all and everything for another? Who can be the sun that lights up the soul and drives away despair, depression, and fear, not just for a night of love or a season of romance, but for a whole long lifetime until death do part?
I have often wondered at the relationship between splendor and love. It seems to me that love is the very heart of splendor, its deepest purpose, while splendor gives fire and brilliance to love. I know that just as we can place too great a demand on love and the one we fall in love with, so we can want too much of splendor. In this, I think, we make a great mistake. We should want to shine as an expression of our true nature, not because splendor itself will save us from our darker side.

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Most Americans, like other peoples across the world, grow up under communism. We do not call it that, of course. “From each according to his means; to each according to his needs”: this saying encapsulates communism’s essential philosophy. In more socialistic systems, people are supposed to contribute as much as they can to society while receiving in return all life’s necessities. It doesn’t matter if someone is old or young, smart or stupid, strong or weak, handy or disabled—he or she is entitled to a living from others who must provide it.
That is pretty much how families work. We do not expect anything from a baby boy to justify receiving the milk that his mother makes and feeds to him. When the boy grows a little older, he might have to water the horses or mow the grass, but he still does not produce as much as he consumes. When he grows older still and becomes a man, he will produce a good deal more than he keeps for himself, and he feels glad to give his time, his labor, and his bounty to his children so that they might grow up to do the same with their children. And when the man becomes old and feeble, his sons and daughters will take care of him.

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If our democracy worked as it should, we would elect wise women and men who made laws for the good of the people and enforced those laws.
That, though, is not the way things work. Greedy, power–mad billionaires spend money so that politicians such as George W. Bush can buy elections. Corrupt corporations such as Enron defraud old ladies and commit crimes. And they get away with it. They get away with it because most of us are so afraid of losing the security of our nice, normal lives that we are not willing to risk anything about those lives. We are either afraid to fight or we don’t know how. Or we believe that bad things won’t happen to us.
And so, in the end, too many people lose their lives anyway. In Nazi Germany, millions of men who acquiesced to Hitler’s murderous rise to power wound up marching into Russia’s icy wasteland—into the Soviet Army’s machine guns and cannon—to themselves be murdered. In America after 9–11, trusting teenagers who had joined the National Guard found themselves sent to Iraq on extended and additional tours. Our enemy killed many of them because we, citizens of the richest country in the world, did not provide them with body armor.
Grieving mothers protested the wasting of their sons’ lives. Nadia McCaffrey defied Bush’s shameful ban on the filming of U.S. soldiers’ coffins returning home from Iraq. She knew, as we all did, that this tyrannical dictum of Bush dishonored our soldiers’ sacrifice. And so she invited the press to the Sacramento International Airport to photograph her son’s flag–draped coffin.
Again, I am not comparing George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler, nor America to Germany’s Third Reich. What I do believe is that each of us has the duty to keep the Bushes of the world from becoming anything like Hitler—and to keep America from invading other countries with no just cause.
We will never, though, be able to stop corrupt politicians and corporations from doing criminal things until we stop surrendering our power to them. The more we fear to oppose them—the more we want to retreat into the supposed safety of our nice gated communities or downtown lofts—the more powerful people will conspire to ruin our prosperity and wreck our lives.

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I think we all collectively have gone a little crazy. We worry about the wrong things. I have an acquaintance, Christy, whose twelve–year–old son managed to get into a very violent PG–13 movie. I don’t know how many machine–gunnings, explosions, and killings this boy wound up witnessing. As I recall, the boy had nightmares for a week afterward. That disturbed his mother—but not as much as if her son had stumbled into a different kind of movie.
“At least there wasn’t any sex,” she said with dead–serious concern.
“No,” I said, “probably not a single bare breast.”
I didn’t add that most societies do not regard the adult female breast as being primarily an object of sexual desire. After all, it’s just a big gland that makes milk in order to feed hungry babies.
“You know what I’m talking about,” she snapped. “I mean graphic sex.”
We were sitting in a café drinking tea. She cut off the volume of her speech at the end of her sentence, whispering and exaggerating the consonants of S–E–X as if she needed me to read her lips—as if giving voice to this word might disturb our neighbors and brand her as a deviant.
“I don’t think children should see that kind of thing,” she added.
“What should children see?” I asked her.
I am not arguing that we should let our children buy tickets to raunchy movies. I never let my daughters bring home steamy videos or surf the Internet for porn. But something is wrong when sex becomes a dirty word that we don’t even want our children to hear. Why must we regard almost anything sexual as tantamount to obscene?
I think many of us are like Christy. We wouldn’t want our children—even our very sexual teenagers—to see certain kinds of movies, even if they happened to be erotic masterpieces, true works of art. It wouldn’t matter if a movie gave us a wonderful scene of a wife and a husband very lovingly making love with the conscious intention of engendering new life. It wouldn’t matter that sex is life, and therefore must be regarded as sacred as anything could possibly be. It wouldn’t even matter that not one of us could have come into the world but for the sexual union of our fathers and our mothers. If a movie portrayed a man and woman in the ecstatic dance of love—actually showed naked bellies and breasts, burning lips and adoring eyes and the glistening, impassioned organs of sex—most people I know would rather their children watch the vile action movie. They would rather their “innocent” sons and daughters behold the images of bloody, blasted bodies, torture, murder, and death.

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I do believe, however, that Cho was not just an anomaly or an accident of nature. Our broken civilization turns out broken, malfunctioning human beings as surely as Ford once produced the exploding Pinto. We are born to mothers who do not have the time to care for us; we are given chemicals to drink in our artificial formulas filling up plastic bottles. Our doctors inject our babies with vaccines preserved with mercury compounds, which we know can poison and damage tender, new nervous systems. Soon enough we addict our children to sugary foods that make them fat and liable to develop diabetes. When we force children to sit at their desks in school for long hours, like little robots, the most restless naturally rebel and run a little wild. These we label as hyperactive and ply with drugs such as Ritalin. We teach our children many things in school, such as that some of them are destined to become winners in our take–all, jackpot society, while others must learn their place as people who are picked on and must scramble for scraps. We teach our children even more through the violent images they see in movies and on television and the Internet—and through the glitter of all the luxury cars, custom kitchens, and a thousand other goods that they think they must possess. We teach them that acquiring a lot of money will make them happy. When they have grown up and begin to lose sleep trying to make all that money, they begin drinking coffee and taking other drugs to stay awake. We try to inure them to the inevitable cruelty of their bosses cannibalizing their energy, even as we subtly encourage them to become rich so that they can do the cannibalizing. One day, when they begin having panic attacks and they realize how desperately unhappy they really are, new doctors prescribe for them Prozac and other potent antidepressant drugs so that they can make it through their day without killing someone.
How have we allowed ourselves to so lose touch with our true nature? Why do we seem to accept that we must live in an insane society? Among other things, isn’t it a mark of our madness that we provide easy access to semi–automatic weapons to someone murderously insane, like Seung–Hui Cho?

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In Man’s Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl points out that while we cannot escape suffering, we can change our attitude toward it. We can regard it as a necessary part of life, even as a great teacher about life. If we substitute “pain” for “suffering,” I agree with him. A great deal about life—wounds, hunger, old age, loss of love, loss of loved ones—hurts. Pain really is bound up with the experience of life. Suffering is not. I find it useful to think of suffering as our resistance to pain. We can even quantify this in a crude way: pain times resistance equals suffering. The greatest pain I ever felt, my mother’s death, became bearable to me because I accepted that she had grown tired of life and needed to move on. I wanted her to find peace much more than I needed a kind ear to listen to my problems.
Whereas other pains, seemingly of much lesser degree, such as that of my girlfriend casting me aside at a time when I most needed her, I resisted with each stubborn breath and agonized thought of her finding some wealthy guy to love and to hold in replacement of me. And so I multiplied a lesser loss into an intense longing and burning for what I could not have, and therefore I created for myself a sheer, living hell.

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I want to begin my fight for the future of our world with the sharing of a vision. Everyone has, or should have, a vision. This is mine.
It is a simple vision, really. It begins with the creation of a single, sane, planetary civilization. That will have to be very much like a utopia. People will deny the possibility of such a dream. They will say that people have always been at each other's throats, that this is just human nature, the way of the world. That we can never change the world.
But that is just silly. That is like saying that two battling brothers, children, will never grow up to be the best of friends who watch each other’s backs. Once, a long time ago, people lost their sons and daughters to the claws of big cats. In classic times, the Greeks and the Romans saw slavery as evil, but as a necessary evil that could never go away. Only seventy years ago, Germany and France came to death blows in the greatest war in history; now they share a common currency, open borders, and a stake in the future of Europe. The Scandinavians once terrorized the world as marauding Vikings gripping bloody axes and swords, while now their descendents refrain from spanking their children, and big blond–haired men turn their hands to the care of babies.
We all have a sense of what this new civilization must look like: No war. No hunger. No want. No very wealthy using their money to manipulate laws and lawmakers so that they become ever more wealthy while they cast the poor into the gutters like garbage. The wasteland made green again. Oceans once more teeming with life. The human heart finally healed. A new story that we tell ourselves about ourselves and new songs that we sing to our children. The vast resources once mobilized for war and economic supremacy now poured into a true science of survival and technologies of the soul.
I want this to be. But how can it be? How will we get from a world on the brink of destruction to this glorious, golden future?
I do not know. It is not for any one person to know, for to create the earth anew we will need to call upon the collective genius and the good will of the entire human race. We will need all our knowledge of history, anthropology, religion, and science, and much else. We will need a deep, deep sympathy for human nature, in both its terrible and angelic aspects.

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I do not believe that we have finished evolving. And by that, I do not mean that we will continue to make ever more sophisticated machines and intelligent computers, even as we unlock our genetic code and use our biotechnologies to reshape the human form as we once bred new strains of cattle and sheep. We have placed much too great a faith in our technology. Although we will always reach out to new technologies, as our hands naturally do toward pebbles and shells by the seashore, the idea that the technologies of our civilized life have put an end to our biological evolution—that “Man” is a finished product—is almost certainly wrong.
It seems to be just the opposite. In the 10,000 years since our ancestors settled down to farm the land, in the few thousand years in which they built great civilizations, the pressures of this new way of life have caused human evolution to actually accelerate. The rate at which genes are being positively selected to engender in us new features and forms has increased as much as a hundredfold. Two genes linked to brain size are rapidly evolving. Perhaps others will change the way our brain interconnects with itself, thus changing the way we think, act, and feel.
What other natural forces work transformations deep inside us? Humanity keeps discovering whole new worlds. Without, in only five centuries, we have gone from thinking that the earth formed the center of the universe to gazing through our telescopes and identifying countless new galaxies in an unimaginably vast cosmos of which we are only the tiniest speck. Within, the first scientists to peer through microscopes felt shocked to behold bacteria swarming through our blood and other tissues. They later saw viruses infecting those bacteria in entire ecologies of life living inside life. We do not know all there is to know about life. We have not yet marveled deeply enough at life’s essential miracle.
How, we should ask ourselves, do the seemingly soulless elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, zinc, iron, and all the others organize themselves into a fully conscious human being? How does matter manage to move itself? Could it be that an indwelling consciousness makes up the stuff of all things? Could this consciousness somehow animate the whole grand ecology of evolution, from the forming of the first stars to the creation of human beings who look out at the universe’s glittering constellations in wonder? Could consciousness somehow embrace itself, folding back on itself, in a new and natural technology of the soul?
If it could, this would give new meaning to Nietzsche’s insight that: “The highest art is self–creation.”
Could we, really, shape our own evolution with the full force of our consciousness, even as we might exert our will to reach out and mold a lump of clay into a graceful sculpture? What is consciousness, really? What does it mean to be human?

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[quote="Във „Фигури на отвъдността в българската литература на XX век" Иван Станков"]Всяка литературна творба е крайна и това е непримиримото противоречие между литературата и историята. В историята няма нито една, нито една крайна, прекъсната каузална верига. При нея причинно-следствеността не е количество, а всеобщо качество. Всяко следствие е и причина и в този смисъл нашето времево мислене е осакатено, доколкото в битийното мислене всяка секунда е пространствено безкрайна, доколкото всяка секунда е безкрайно натъпкана с едновременни исторически случвания. Събитията не се натрупват, не се полепват по времевата ос на годините, както мускулите се закрепват върху костите. Тялото на историята е като на есетровите риби и на ракообразните — скелетът е външен, годините и датите са отвън, а вътре са несвършващите, безначални плетеници на причинно-следствените вериги. Литературата може само да ги уподобява, инсценирайки безкрайности. Покварата и на историческата наука, и на историческата тема в литературата е в избирателното отношение към безкрайната маса на миналото. Историческата извадка не би трябвало да има строен пирамидален характер с шлайфани стени. За да бъде поне привидно автентична, извадката трябва да носи идеята за аморфност, да наподобява безформен минерален отломък от природонаучните музеи.[/quote]

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При тръгването си назад в историята Емилиян Станев приготвя много багаж. Декорацията е лека, реквизитът на романите изобщо не е пищен, редуциран е до разголена модерна условност. Писателят е съсредоточен върху персонажите и върху мисълта им. Това са романи от състояния, най-важното от които е състоянието на вярата. Не само на институционалната. Много повече на личната. И не само на персонажите, но и на автора. Ето тук е основният проблем на Емилиян Станев, тук е единственият недостатъчно осигурен ресурс. Никой от персонажите в романите не може да мисли Бога извън Дявола. С изключение на няколко ортодоксални щрихи около Евтимий и Теодосий в „Антихрист“ — тотален еретизъм. Не само в „Антихрист“. И не само у Емилиян Станев. Цялата ни литература гъмжи от богомили, от еретици, от езичници. В нея липсва изцяло другата главна линия в световната човешка мисъл, идваща от Августин, а именно, че злото няма своя собствена природа.

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През шейсетте години българската литература прави важно откритие. Наместо героят на петдесетте, който през цялата творба носи идеята на яките си мишци, писателите предлагат на внимателно очакващия читател образа на неординерния и непредсказуем Търсач. Търсача на идеи. От естетическа, пък и от социалнополитическа гледна точка това се оказа непоправимо. Самото време започва да става недоверчиво — героите заразяват читателя със съмнения.
През това десетилетие жанрът на романа взема много важно географско решение — екстрадира героя си на острова на Историята. На заточение, но свободен. Тук той реализира две изключителни възможности. На първо място генерира, произвежда памет — нещо твърде невъзпитано през петдесетте години. На второ — дръзко и безнаказано разхожда горещите си съвременни идеи из иначе безобидните мъртви експонати на историческата тема. И още — художественото заиграване с историческата истина актуализира проблема за Истината изобщо, за нейната релативност, относителност, недоказуемост. Върху тая благородна пясъчна несигурност се издигат словесните крепости на „Летопис на смутното време“, „Цената на златото“, „Време разделно“, „Антихрист“.

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Появата на разделното и на разделеното време е най-сериозният удар върху монолитността на петдесетте. Тази монолитност, крепяща се на представата за абсолютното време, владее естетическите закони на социалистическия реализъм до шейсетте години по силата на идеологическия абсолютизъм. Героите на шейсетте „приватизират“, а донякъде и си реституират важни части от авторовия монопол върху времевото единство, върху темпоралната монолитност в литературата. Досегашните спорадични пробиви в тази монолитност не са нещо повече от формални накъсвания на сегашността от ретроспективни набези и футуристични мечтания като чисто механически размествания на времеви пластове. Шейсетте години позволяват на героя на влезе във владение на личното си време, да го отдели органически от историческия процес, да стане тъждествен с него, да го замести, да го персонализира до степен на присвояване и в крайна сметка да разруши представата за обективното единство на времето. Няма единно обективно време — това е една от основните идеи на Теорията. Това е и голямото послание на шейсетте към епохата на петдесетте години.

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– Добре – продължава той. – Да оставим клюките! Научих нещо полезно. Ще има проблем, за да го осиновим... 
– Нали каза, че той има необходимите документи? 
– Да. Само че по закон не е възможно да се поиска конкретно дете. Практиката е да се търсят подходящи родители за всяко дете, а не подходящо дете за определени родители. След като бъдем одобрени за осиновители от социалните служби, те сами ще подготвят предложение съобразно желанията ни. Можем да упоменем предпочитания за пол, възраст, етнически произход и здравословно състояние, но според теорията на вероятностите шансът да попаднем на него не е голям... 
– Какво? 
Внезапно всичко се срина. За съществуването на такава пречка никога не бих се досетила. Мислех си, че ако искаш да станеш родител, отиваш в дом „Майка и дете”, срещаш се с възпитаниците му, някое от момичетата или момчетата ти допада... Какво значи друг да решава вместо теб и да ти предлага непознати деца? Ами ако са...  
В мига, в който мисълта преминава през съзнанието ми, вече се чувствам виновна заради нея и забивам поглед в пода. Помислих си: „Ами ако са ти антипатични?” и веднага си дадох сметка, че тази дума не може да се приложи към дете. Децата не могат да бъдат грозни, злобни, глупави или необщителни, а ако ти се струват такива, то проблемът съвсем не е в тях, нито това е причина да живеят без дом и семейство. Както и да е – въпросът е твърде философски, а трябва да подходим практично.
– Значи няма начин да осиновиш сираче, което си срещнал и си харесал, така ли? – връщам се към съществената част.  
– Официално – не! Мисля, че дори да става въпрос за осиротяло дете на твои съседи или приятели, пак няма да ти позволят веднага. Поне не по обикновения ред. Вероятно, ако се докаже, че има някаква емоционална близост... Знам ли! По принцип обаче не е практика. 
– Защо? В други страни го правят... Даже съм виждала сайтове със снимките на деца за осиновяване и информация за тях. Човек може да разгледа и да си избере... Защо тук да не става? Не, настина защо? Не разбирам! 
– Не е толкова трудно за разбиране, ако помислиш малко – тихо казва татко и ме гледа изпитателно. – Един такъв дом не е пазар за дини, за да си купиш най-голямата и сочната! Става дума за хора, а не за вещи, които могат да бъдат сравнявани, класифицирани и подбирани.  
– Да, прав си – думите му ме карат да се изчервя от размислите си преди минута. – Щом има закон, значи зад него стои основание, но... Добре де, ако все пак при посещение на такова място някое дете предизвика у теб тръпка, усетиш привличане... 
– Това е само повърхностно впечатление, Ирка! Идеята е, че взимайки чуждо дете, човек не трябва да търси у него физическа привлекателност, интелект, заложби или да му възлага големи очаквания. Осиновеното дете трябва да бъде донякъде като родното – каквото ти се падне, а не каквото ти би желал да имаш!
– Татко, ти... – думите, които ми идват наум, са жестоки и манипулативни, но намирам сили да ги изрека: – Ако трябваше да избереш детето си, би ли взел мен? Имам предвид, ако знаеше всичко. 
Той мълчи и обмисля отговора си, а аз знам, че когато проговори, ще ми каже цялата истина, независимо дали е красива или грозна. Ние нямаме тайни, от него научих за болестта си, за секса и други неща, които повечето момичета обсъждат с познати жени. Майка ми е по-крехка, по-консервативна, по-твърда в представите си. Тя също ме изслушва и ме подкрепя, но аз знам, че не мога да й доверя всичко – някои неща няма да разбере, а други биха я съсипали. Най-сетне татко ме поглежда в очите и ме прегръща през рамото.  
– Ако знаех всичко и си давах сметка колко радост ще ми донесеш, Ирка, никога не бих се поколебал да те избера за мое дете. Ако някой се появеше и кажеше примерно: „Искаш ли да отгледаш болно дете, което може да умре?”... Тогава бях млад, несигурен, объркан. Тъкмо бях завършил университета, търсех мястото си в живота, не смятах, че съм готов за подобно предизвикателство. В мига, в който те видях с очите си и те взех на ръце, разбрах, че ти си моето прекрасно момиченце, но ако знаех за трудностите, които ни чакат, предварително, щях да... се изплаша.

[Кал]

You are not a man as ordinary men are. They think they have a right to all beasts; to hunt them and eat them, or to subjugate them and rule their lives. You know you have no such right to mastery. The horse that carries you will do so because he wishes to, as does the wolf that hunts beside you. You have a deeper sense of yourself in the world. You believe you have a right, not to rule it, but to be part of it.

[Кал]

[quote="In "The Princess in the Basement," Hope Erica Schultz"]“(...) Mom always told me a woman didn’t need a prince to rescue her. She needed a friend, to help her rescue herself.”[/quote]

[Кал]

As I walked toward the front door, a little motion to the left caught my eye. Jenny Sells stood in the hallway, a silent wraith. She regarded me with luminous green eyes, like her mother’s, like the dead aunt whose namesake she was. I stopped and faced her. I’m not sure why.
“You’re the wizard,” she said, quietly. “You’re Harry Dresden. I saw your picture in the newspaper, once. The Arcane.”
I nodded.
She studied my face for a long minute. “Are you going to help my mom?”
It was a simple question. But how do you tell a child that things just aren’t that simple, that some questions don’t have simple answers—or any answer at all?
I looked back into her too-knowing eyes, and then quickly away. I didn’t want her to see what sort of person I was, the things I had done. She didn’t need that. “I’m going to do everything I can to help your mom.”
She nodded. “Do you promise?”
I promised her.
She thought that over for a moment, studying me. Then she nodded. “My daddy used to be one of the good guys, Mr. Dresden. But I don’t think that he is anymore.” Her face looked sad. It was a sweet, unaffected expression. “Are you going to kill him?”
Another simple question.
“I don’t want to,” I told her. “But he’s trying to kill me. I might not have any choice.”
She swallowed and lifted her chin. “I loved my Aunt Jenny,” she said. Her eyes brightened with tears. “Momma won’t say, and Billy’s too little to figure it out, but I know what happened.” She turned, with more grace and dignity than I could have managed, and started to leave. Then said, quietly, “I hope you’re one of the good guys, Mr. Dresden. We really need a good guy. I hope you’ll be all right.” Then she vanished down the hall on bare, silent feet.

[Mokidi]

Копчето за благодарност не ми стига, сори.
Джим Бъчър е голям.
МНОГО е голям.
И новата му серия е много приятна, да не кажа извънредно добра, и пълна с хубави лафове и разкошни внушения. За The Aeronaut's Windlass говоря. The Cinder Spires 1. Много жалко, че, доколкото разбирам, Скълдъгъри не се продава достатъчно добре, че да купят и тази серия...

[Кал]

Negotiation exposes something at once simple and intricate about intimacy: that it is far better to actually know your partner’s body by becoming one with their interior selves, and you can only do this by talking to them. Far from being the stereotypical “mood killer,” sexual knowing requires discussion, requires asking questions, a lesson that I and so many others have had to learn quite painfully; the worst sexual experiences of my own life occurred, as I often say, because I did not know how to ask and did not know how to tell. For too long I thought sex had to occur in a kind of monastic, knowing silence. To do anything else would be to risk giving offence, putting myself in harm’s way, or simply ruining the atmosphere; how wrong I was.

[osobena]

I talk to myself every once in a while. Give myself a very good advice. Sometimes I even take it.

[AllyVRK]

Из "Приказка без край," М. Енде:
Не може с думи да бъде описана тази битка за Кулата от слонова кост, затова не си и струва да се описва. Във Фантазия и до днес има безброй песни и предания за нея. Та нали всеки, който е участвал в тази битка, е изживял нещо различно. Всичко това са приказки, които един ден може би ще бъдат разказани.

[Кал]

‘And so you arranged for our escape,’ I said. ‘To help us, as you could not help your sister?’
‘Yes, it was something like that.’
‘And when Gabi spoke of your protecting us,’ I said, ‘it touched off the memory of how you could not protect Bibi.’
‘Yes, it was something like that.’ She lit another cigarette, and sat smoking deep in thought. ‘I very much despise, however, these kinds of analyses of behavior, as if we are automatons who process garbage in by spitting the same garbage back out. Yes, I survived a great trauma, and yes, various things—a quick color, a sound, something someone says—can send me back to the moment when they tortured Bibi. So what? Am I, then, to be reduced to a machine of iron levers and grinding gears that lacks free will? I will not be dehumanized in that way. I slapped poor Gabi, yes, and I suppose in that moment I was slapping away everyone and everything in the soldiers’ encampment that I failed to fight off. In the end, though, it was my choice—my will. I hurt Gabi because I could not find the will not to hurt her.’

[Кал]

She explained that the man who had wreaked such slaughter on ‘her’ whales had set up a camera on the beach and had filmed himself working his murders.
‘His name,’ she said, ‘was Derek Christie—he suffered from narcissism and various personality disorders.’
I let the sounds of her human–formed syllables play through my memory. The murderer’s last name instantly brought forth the image of a red–faced, beefy man.
‘Reverend Pusser,’ I said, ‘as much as said I was the anti–Christ and hinted that bad things were going to happen to me. Derek Christie, then, was one of his men?’
‘No,’ Helen said, laughing softly through a mist of smoke. ‘He was no Christian. He had belonged to Total Conservation before it split apart.’
‘Jordan’s group? Then Jordan wanted us whales dead?’
‘No, it was just the opposite. After the radicals took over Total Conservation and began blowing up chemical factories, Jordan founded another group, Save the Ocean.’ She motioned with her hand toward the Sound and the open sea beyond. ‘He has had more success with that—and, it seems, a change of heart.’
‘How can that be? Stone surrounds his heart.’
‘And you have been the water that washes away mountains. Jordan has actually funded other conservation groups, such as the Whale Warriors.’
‘Jordan has?’ I formed the stuttering syllables of Wordsong that indicated a sort of bitter, astonished laughter. ‘Then I do not understand why the Christie man would have wanted to blow up whales.’
‘Neither do I, really. Derek made another film in which he tells his story. It seems that when he heard your diatribe against animal rights, he came to see you as one of the biggest threats to his cause.’
‘Yes,’ I said with the taste of the man’s blood still in my mouth, ‘an animal speaking out against the rights that you humans deign to accord us animals.’
‘Oh, no,’ she said. Her laughter grew darker in color to match my own; the tobacco–tinged timbre of her voice touched upon a humor so vast and deep it seemed that no human could ever hold it. ‘Derek made it clear in his film: he loved all animals, and had sworn to die to protect them. He was able to kill the other whales, as he tried to kill you, only because he came to regard you as human.’

[Кал]

Giving up too much of yourself for others can be just as detrimental as being utterly selfish. Fatigue feeds into resentment, and resentment into negativity so deep it’s difficult to settle your state of mind.

[Кал]

When every child had the exam paper, a Society official at the front of the hall sounded a glass chime. With a chorus of rustling, they opened their booklets. Morrigan took a deep breath and turned to the first page.
It was blank. As was the second page, and the third. She flipped through the rest of the booklet and found that there were no questions anywhere.
She raised her hand and tried to catch the eye of an official to tell them there’d been a mistake, that she’d been given a blank exam, but the woman at the front of the room was oblivious.
Morrigan looked at the first page again. Words appeared.
You’re not from here.
Why do you even want to join the Wundrous Society?
Morrigan glanced around to see if any other candidate’s booklet had grown a brain and started asking impertinent questions. If they had, nobody seemed surprised. Perhaps their patrons had warned them.
She remembered what Jupiter had said to her—Just take your time, Mog, and answer honestly. With a sigh, Morrigan picked up her pencil and began.
Because I want to be an important and useful member of soc—
Before she’d finished writing it, the sentence was scratched out by some unseen pen. She gasped.
Nonsense, said the book. Why do you really want to be in the Wundrous Society?
Morrigan chewed on her lip.
Because I want a little golden W pin.
The words scratched themselves out again. A corner of the page began to blacken and curl in on itself.
Nope, said the book.
A tiny tendril of smoke coiled up from the smoldering edges of the page. Morrigan tried stamping it out with her hand, but it wouldn’t stop. She looked around frantically for a glass of water or an adult to help her, but none of the officials seemed disturbed. In fact, they seemed to be tranquilly ignoring the fact that not only Morrigan’s, but several other candidates’ exam booklets were in various stages of combustion.
One boy’s paper burst into flames and burned out completely, leaving nothing but a pile of ash on his desk. An official tapped him on the shoulder and motioned for him to leave. The boy slumped out of the hall.
Honest answers, thought Morrigan quickly, and grabbed her pencil again.
Because I want people to like me.
The paper paused in its journey to self-destruction. It hovered in a flickering, smoldering state that usually preceded the whoosh of flames.
Go on, said the book.
Her hand shook a little.
I want to belong somewhere.
More, the book prompted her.
She took a deep breath, thought of the conversation she’d had with Jupiter the day after Morningtide, and wrote:
I want brothers and sisters who will stand by me forever, no matter what.
The damage began to slowly reverse itself, the clean white paper creeping back and reclaiming its burned corners. Relieved, Morrigan loosened her death grip on the pencil a little. After a moment, the second question appeared.
What is your biggest fear?
Morrigan didn’t even have to think about that one. Total no-brainer.
That dolphins will learn to walk on land and shoot acid out of their blowholes.
The words violently scratched themselves out and the paper once again began to char. Nearby, a girl shrieked as her own booklet conflagrated. She was sent out of the examination hall with singed eyebrows.
Morrigan racked her brain as the corners of her booklet turned to ash. She’d told the truth! Land-dwelling acid dolphins were her biggest fear, they had always been her biggest fear, except—well, no. She’d always said they were her biggest fear. Probably because her biggest fear, the real one, was too awful to talk about. She bit her lip and committed a new answer to the page.
Death.
The book continued to smolder.
Death, she wrote again. Death! It’s obviously death!
And then, a brain wave—
The Hunt of Smoke and Shadow.
But the book kept burning. Morrigan grabbed it, wincing as it scorched her fingers, and wrote in the last tiny patch of white space left:
Being forgotten.
The book unburned a little.
Go on, it said.
That nobody will remember me. That my family won’t remember me because
Morrigan paused, her pencil hovering above the smoky page—
because they’d rather forget that I ever existed.
The book smoothed and whitened, uncurling its pages until they were once again pristine. Morrigan waited patiently for her third and final question. She glanced around the room and saw that roughly a quarter of the desks were now empty but for little piles of ashes.
And how, asked the book, will you ensure that people remember you?
Morrigan thought for a long time. She leaned back in her chair and watched silently as small fires broke out all around her and a few dozen more candidates were made to leave the hall. Finally, she wrote the most honest answer she could think of.
I don’t know.
And after a moment’s hesitation, she added one more word:
Yet.
In an instant, all three questions and answers disappeared from the pages and were replaced with a single word in large green letters.
PASS.

(Това си е направо за „Образованието“.)

[Кал]

[quote="In "Uncle Chaim and Aunt Rifke and the Angel," Peter S. Beagle"]The rabbi said, “So, after you died, what did happen? Where did you go?”
There was no answer. Rabbi Shulevitz repeated the question. The dybbuk responded finally, “You have said it yourself. Houseless in the universe I am, and how should it be otherwise? The woman I loved died because I did not love her enough—what greater sin is there than that? Even her murderer had the courage to atone, but I dared not offer my own life in payment for hers. I chose to live, and living on has been my punishment, in death as well as in life. To wander back and forth in a cold you cannot know, shunned by heaven, scorned by purgatory... do you wonder that I sought shelter where I could, even in an angel? God himself would have to come and cast me out again, Rabbi—you never can.”
I became aware that my aunt and uncle had drawn close around me, as though expecting something dangerous and possibly explosive to happen. Rabbi Shulevitz took off his glasses again, ran his hand through his crewcut, stared at the glasses as though he had never seen them before, and put them back on.
“You are right,” he said to the dybbuk. “I’m a rabbi, not a rebbe—no Solomonic wisdom, no magical powers, just a degree from a second-class seminary in Metuchen, New Jersey. You wouldn’t know it.” He drew a deep breath and moved a few steps closer to the blue angel. He said, “But this gornisht rabbi knows anyway that you would never have been allowed this refuge if God had not taken pity on you. You must know this, surely?” The dybbuk did not answer. Rabbi Shulevitz said, “And if God pities you, might you not have a little pity on yourself? A little forgiveness?”
“Forgiveness....” Now it was the dybbuk who whispered. “Forgiveness may be God’s business. It is not mine.”
“Forgiveness is everyone’s business. Even the dead. On this earth or under it, there is no peace without forgiveness.” The rabbi reached out then, to touch the blue angel comfortingly. She did not react, but he winced and drew his hand back instantly, blowing hard on his fingers, hitting them against his leg. Even I could see that they had turned white with cold.
“You need not fear for her,” the dybbuk said. “Angels feel neither cold nor heat. You have touched where I have been.”
Rabbi Shulevitz shook his head. He said, “I touched you. I touched your shame and your grief—as raw today, I know, as on the day your love died. But the cold... the cold is yours. The loneliness, the endless guilt over what you should have done, the endless turning to and fro in empty darkness... none of that comes from God. You must believe me, my friend.” He paused, still flexing his frozen fingers. “And you must come forth from God’s angel now. For her sake and your own.”
The dybbuk did not respond. Aunt Rifke said, far more sympathetically than she had before, “You need a minyan, I could make some calls. We’d be careful, we wouldn’t hurt it.”
Uncle Chaim looked from her to the rabbi, then back to the blue angel. He opened his mouth to say something, but didn’t.
The rabbi said, “You have suffered enough at your own hands. It is time for you to surrender your pain.” When there was still no reply, he asked, “Are you afraid to be without it? Is that your real fear?”
“It has been my only friend!” the dybbuk answered at last. “Even God cannot understand what I have done so well as my pain does. Without the pain, there is only me.”
“There is heaven,” Rabbi Shulevitz said. “Heaven is waiting for you. Heaven has been waiting a long, long time.”
“I am waiting for me!” It burst out of the dybbuk in a long wail of purest terror, the kind you only hear from small children trapped in a nightmare. “You want me to abandon the one sanctuary I have ever found, where I can huddle warm in the consciousness of an angel and sometimes—for a little—even forget the thing I am. You want me to be naked to myself again, and I am telling you no, not ever, not ever, not ever. Do what you must, Rabbi, and I will do the only thing I can.” It paused, and then added, somewhat stiffly, “Thank you for your efforts. You are a good man.”
Rabbi Shulevitz looked genuinely embarrassed. He also looked weary, frustrated and older than he had been when he first recognized the possession of Uncle Chaim’s angel. Looking vaguely around at us, he said, “I don’t know—maybe it will take a minyan. I don’t want to, but we can’t just....” His voice trailed away sadly, too defeated even to finish the sentence.
Or maybe he didn’t finish because that was when I stepped forward, pulling away from my aunt and uncle, and said, “He can come with me, if he wants. He can come and live in me. Like with the angel.”
Uncle Chaim said, “What?” and Aunt Rifke said, “No!” and Rabbi Shulevitz said, “David!” He turned and grabbed me by the shoulders, and I could feel him wanting to shake me, but he didn’t. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. He said, “David, you don’t know what you’re saying.”
“Yes, I do,” I said. “He’s scared, he’s so scared. I know about scared.”
Aunt Rifke crouched down beside me, peering hard into my face. “David, you’re ten years old, you’re a little boy. This one, he could be a thousand years, he’s been hiding from God in an angel’s body. How could you know what he’s feeling?”
I said, “Aunt Rifke, I go to school. I wake up every morning, and right away I think about the boys waiting to beat me up because I’m small, or because I’m Jewish, or because they just don’t like my face, the way I look at them. Every day I want to stay home and read, and listen to the radio, and play my All-Star Baseball game, but I get dressed and I eat breakfast, and I walk to school. And every day I have to think how I’m going to get through recess, get through gym class, get home without running into Jay Taffer, George DiLucca. Billy Kronish. I know all about not wanting to go outside.”[/quote]

[Radiant Dragon]

На пръв поглед, двама директори на мегакорпорации обсъждат проблемите на клиничното безсмъртие:

Observing the naked, full-length holographic image of Duane Alden that appeared to hover in the air between him and the encased brain, the one phrase that came to Simon’s mind was Golden Youth. Duane was physically flawless and distinctly handsome.
“Your new body, I take it,” Simon inquired.
“Yes,” Zawolijski said. “He’s quite splendid, isn’t he? Several centimeters taller than my last. And that face… so bold. I’m sure the ladies will be appreciative.”
“I’m curious. Exactly how old are you?”
“Two hundred and eight years, Earth standard.”
“And this body would be number… ?”
“My fifth replacement. I remained in my original until I was sixty.”
“A new body every thirty years. That seems slightly extravagant.”
“Not really. Twenty to fifty: the best years of a man’s life.”
“In the classical model, yes, but now that human bodies can be v-written for enhanced life expectancy, the period of primacy is considerably longer.”
“Quite so. But such germline treatments are only just becoming commonplace on Kinabica, and as the parents invariably request additional modifications such as increased intelligence, such specimens are less likely to stray.”
Simon canceled Duane’s file and frowned at the brain. “You believe that enhanced intelligence ensures a noncriminal life?”
The brain chuckled. “Less likely to get caught, actually. Or if they do, then it’s after a long and arduous investigation. By which time they’re past their usefulness to the Board.”
“You should use equally intelligent police officers to catch them.”
“At the salary we pay?”
“I see your point. Which leads to my next question. Why not simply clone yourself a replacement body?”
“Ah, one of our race’s favorite myths. Have you any idea how difficult and expensive that is? Growing a human in vitro until—realistically—they’re sixteen. How would you suppress the arrival of consciousness over that time?”
“Would that problem arise? I’d have thought the lack of external stimuli would eliminate any chance of thoughts germinating.”
“Coherent thought, certainly. But even infants have a basic awareness, and more than that by parturition. Sensory deprivation for sixteen years produces a monstrously retarded consciousness. It doesn’t quite qualify as a personality. But believe me, it’s a problem sustaining a body in an amniotic tank for any time after its first year. It wants to be birthed and struggles against its confinement.”
“Then clone a body without a brain. V-write it out of the genome.”
“Oh, please, how would you replace the autonomic function control? Technologically? There are far too many subtleties involved for some kind of wetwired chip to regulate.”
“What about growing parts separately? Accelerating a replacement organ’s growth to its maturity is a proven procedure. After that you simply assemble them into a full body.”
“That merely increases the original problem by two orders of magnitude. The number of separate parts in a body is incredible, and that’s just the principal glands and organs. Don’t forget the entire circulatory system, skin, a skeleton even. What order would you start stitching them together in, in order to make sure they stay functional during the procedure? How much surgery does it actually take to assemble an adult human being? No. The idea is pure science fiction. I assure you, we have explored all these avenues. The most efficient way to produce a human body is the old-fashioned method of unskilled labor. Until we can develop some kind of active nanonics capable of integrating cellular structures or resetting individual DNA strands, transplanting a brain into a criminal’s body is the most reliable procedure to regain a healthy young body.”
“Very well. But what about the neuron regeneration process you employ? There must be some memory loss.”
“Not from the regeneration. My memory loss comes from standard brain decay. New neurons don’t contain old memories. That’s perfectly acceptable to all of us; in fact, it’s essential. The brain is finite, no matter how many improvements we have v-written in each time we undergo rejuvenation. I have to have the capacity available to store my new life’s experiences when I re-enter society.”
“If you are forever discarding the past, then you have forgotten who you were.”
“Never, that’s the beauty of this procedure. I have complete continuity with the baby born those two hundred and eight years ago, which is the overriding psychological factor. The strongest memories anyone has are connected with identity. The events that define what you are, shape your personality and who you have become, are so powerful they are part of your essence. They have become instinct, retained no matter how much regeneration is required. I might not be able to remember the intimate details of a day one hundred and thirty years ago, but that is no longer relevant; I know that I am the individual who lived through that day. Continuity of consciousness rather than unbroken memory, that is the human soul, Representative Roderick.”
“Then what of the biological imperative? Your body is not genetically yours. You cannot reproduce for yourself; any offspring you sire will be those of Duane Alden. What is the point of your existence other than sheer vanity?”
“And you accused us of relying on classical models? With so much v-writing these days, whose child is truly theirs anymore? But to answer your question, that particular aspect of rejuvenation has the easiest remedy. My balls are cloned and transplanted along with my brain into every new body. For females, we simply implant cloned ova. All of us take part in life to the fullest degree when we return. We are complete to a degree unachievable by ordinary living, twenty years old with the intellect of a centenarian.”
“What do you return as, a distant cousin?”
“Whatever identity is most convenient. Family stakeholding is not scrutinized and analyzed, Board family trusts operate privately, executive Board members are not celebrities."
“The perfect system.”
“To sustain us and our chosen way of life, yes. That’s why we wrote the constitution the way it is.”

Но после идва неочакваният епилог:

“So what deal do you require?” the brain asked.
“Deal?”
“For us to continue our existence without interruption. We would be happy to accept your Board members into our fraternity. It is a good life here: Kinabica is a wealthy, advanced world with a stable society. They would lack for nothing.”
“The Board I represent would not be able to accept that offer.”
“I’m offering you virtual immortality lived as a plutocrat, and you’re turning that down?”
“We have different goals and objectives.”
“And you don’t think these objectives can run in parallel to immortality? I find that hard to believe.”
“That really isn’t your concern.”
“Then what do you want?”
Simon pursed his lips, regarding the isolated brain with a weary disappointment. The techniques and ingenuity of the Kinabica Board were impressive, but their goals were so old. They’d be more suited to life in the Renaissance era, or maybe the British Imperium. They could have achieved so much more with what they had; instead they looked to the past for their template, building themselves an impregnable stone castle amid a stagnant society. All they’d done was secure what they already had. With a brand-new planet offering infinite horizons, no fresh possibilities had been explored, no impossible dreams attempted. It was truly pitiable.
“We want nothing from you,” Simon said. “As you said, your planet is a wealthy one. It’s in your Board’s interest that you continue to keep it wealthy, and that coincides with our wishes.”
“You have no objection to our rejuvenation method?”
“None. Keep your lives. We don’t covet your banality.”

[Кал]

Ако Анжолрас въплътяваше логиката на революцията, Комбфер представляваше нейната философия. Между логиката на революцията и нейната философия съществува тази разлика, че логиката ѝ може да доведе до война, а философията ѝ — само до мир. Комбфер допълваше и смекчаваше Анжолрас. Неговият дух не се възземаше толкова високо, но беше по-широк. Той искаше да влее в духовете необятните общи идеи и принципи. Казваше: „Революция ли, нямам нищо против, но трябва и цивилизация.“ И разкриваше широки сини хоризонти около високата стръмна планина. (...) Комбфер обичаше думата гражданин, но предпочиташе думата човек. Охотно би си послужил с испанската дума Hombre. Четеше всичко, ходеше на театър, посещаваше публични беседи, слушаше лекциите на Араго за поляризацията на светлината, възторгваше се от лекцията на Жофроа Сент-Илер, който беше обяснил функцията на външната и вътрешната каротидна артерия, едната от които подхранва лицето, а другата — мозъка. Беше в течение на всичко ново, следваше стъпка по стъпка напредъка на науката, сравняваше Сен-Симон и Фурие, разчиташе йероглифи, разчупваше намерените камъни и размишляваше по въпросите на геологията, рисуваше по памет пеперудата на копринената буба, посочваше граматичните грешки в речника на Академията, изучаваше Пюисегюр и Дьольоз, въздържаше се да потвърди каквото и да било, дори и чудесата, да отрече каквото и да било, дори и призраците, препрочиташе пълните годишнини на „Монитьор“, разсъждаваше. Той заявяваше, че бъдещето е в ръцете на учителя, и се занимаваше с проблемите на възпитанието на подрастващите. Искаше обществото да работи неуморно за повишаване на нравственото и интелектуално равнище, за достъпността на науката, за разпространението на идеите, за духовния растеж на младежите и се боеше, че ограничеността на съвременните преподавателски методи, жалката образователна система, която свежда изучаваната литература до два-три така наречени класически века, тираничният догматизъм на педантите-ръководители, схоластичните предразсъдъци и рутината ще превърнат в края на краищата нашите учебни заведения в изкуствени разсадници на тъпота. Той беше начетен, пурист, с точен и многостранно развит ум, трудолюбив и същевременно склонен към „химерични мечти“ според думите на приятелите му. Вярваше във всеки блян: железница, обезболяване при хирургически операции, фиксиране на образа чрез тъмната камера, електрически телеграф, направляване на балоните. Същевременно ни най-малко не се плашеше от крепостите, които суеверията, деспотизмът и предразсъдъците издигаха от всички страни срещу човешкия род. Той принадлежеше към хората, които смятат, че науката в крайна сметка ще преобрази коренно нещата. Анжолрас беше предводител, Комбфер — водач. Човек би желал да воюва рамо до рамо с единия и да пътешествува рамо до рамо с другия. Не че Комбфер беше негоден за борба; той беше готов да се опълчи срещу препятствията, да влезе в енергична и буйна разправа с тях. Но много повече му допадаше, пръскайки истина и ковейки положителни закони, да издигне постепенно човешкия род до предначертаните му съдбини. Ако трябваше да избира между две светлини, той щеше да избере просвещението, а не пожарището. Пожарът безспорно осветява хоризонта, но утрото го осветява още по-добре. Комбфер предпочиташе неопетнената красота пред пламтящия възвишен идеал.

Моят тип.

[брръм]

Не съм сигурен дали е за тук, но..

Из Study Warns Carbon-Saturated Oceans Headed Toward Tipping Point That Could Unleash Mass Extinction Event

Chaos is opportunity, and the reality is there will always be a way to live your life for as long as you're alive.

Be fucking awesome. Become a leader in these end times. Live as much as you can. Entropy decided you get to exist despite the odds being overwhelmingly against it, who are you to question that?

[брръм]

И още едно:

Из "Черният лебед" на Насим Никълъс Талеб

Какво научиха хората от събитията на 11ти септември? Дали научиха, че някои събития, благодарение на присъщата им динамика, се намират извън пределите на предвидимото? Не. Научиха ли какъв е недостатъкът, присъщ на традиционната мъдрост? Не. Какво проумяха в крайна сметка? Научиха точни правила за избягване на предполагаеми ислямски терористи и високи сгради.

...

Ние не научаваме непринудено, че не успяваме да се научим, че не се учим

Spoiler

Това не е напълно нова идея за мен, но е хубаво да я видиш така добре написана и изкристализирана

[mitseva]

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about."

~Haruki Murakami~