January 2012
409 posts
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December 2011
301 posts
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“The existentialists conclude that human choice is subjective, because...”
– Ivan Soll
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“Death alone does not create meaningfulness, nor exactly does the self’s...”
– Steven Earnshaw, Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed
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Revolutionary Chaos →
The world is getting more troublesome and increasingly challenging right before our eyes.
An unscientific name for the current – and future – state of the world is “jolly dismay.” It is jolly for the people and countries that will prove capable of adjusting themselves to and taking the lead amidst swift changes, as well as making gains on the incessant transformation of the world. For those...
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“In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for...”
– Václav Havel, The Power of the Powerless
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E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything →
At 82, the famed biologist E. O. Wilson arrived in Mozambique last summer with a modest agenda—save a ravaged park; identify its many undiscovered species; create a virtual textbook that will revolutionize the teaching of biology. Wilson’s newest theory is more ambitious still. It could transform our understanding of human nature—and provide hope for our stewardship of the planet.
If one had...
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“If someone told me to write a book on morality, it would have a hundred pages...”
– Albert Camus (via fuckyeahexistentialism)
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Little Boy Lost →
On a child diagnosed with autism:
The worst part was that I knew he sensed it, too. In the same way that I know when he wants vegetable puffs or puréed fruit by the subtle pitch of his cries, I could tell that he also perceived the change—and feared it. At night he was terrified to go to bed, needing to hold my fingers with one hand and touch my face with the other in order to get the...
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“Ha! to forget. How childish! I feel you in my bones. Your silence screams in my...”
– Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit
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What Caused the 4th Mass Extinction? →
Mass extinctions are a relatively common theme in the history and evolution of life on Earth,the most famous of which is the extinction of the dinosaurs. A plethora of research has been conducted to determine how the dinosaur era ended, generating theories of massive volcanic eruptions, catastrophic climate change and giant impactors from space. However, much less is known about another...
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“In short, Europe’s colonization of Africa had nothing to do with differences...”
– Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
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The Coming Out Story I Never Thought I’d Write →
I’ve read stories from people who say they always knew they were attracted to the same sex, or that they figured it out at a young age. I’m not one of them. I had practically no idea until one night in my sophomore year of high school. I was at a basketball game, and the guys around me started pointing out cheerleaders from the other team they thought were hot. I began to wonder: Why wasn’t I...
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What I've (re)read this year
Here’s what I read or reread this year. I had quite a bit of free time so I have been very productive. I bolded the books and short stories I enjoyed the most. I hope this list can help you find good books!
1984 by George Orwell A Descent into the Maelstrom by Edgar Allan Poe A First Rate Tragedy: Robert Falcon Scott and the Race to the South Pole by Diana Preston A Short History of Nearly...
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“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the...”
– Cormac McCarthy, The Road
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“Doubtless today many of our fellow citizens are apt to yield to temptation of...”
– Albert Camus, The Plague
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Mikhail Gorbachev: Is the World Really Safer... →
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union twenty years ago, Western commentators have often celebrated it as though what disappeared from the world arena in December 1991 was the old Soviet Union, the USSR of Stalin and Brezhnev, rather than the reforming Soviet Union of perestroika. Moreover, discussion of its consequences has focused mostly on developments inside Russia. Equally important,...
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“Beauty in the European sense has always had a premeditated quality to it. We’ve...”
– Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I’m flying back to Montreal tomorrow!
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Dinosaur Shocker →
Probing a 68-million-year-old T. rex, Mary Schweitzer stumbled upon astonishing signs of life that may radically change our view of the beasts that once ruled the earth.
It was big news indeed last year when Schweitzer announced she had discovered blood vessels and structures that looked like whole cells inside that T. rex bone—the first observation of its kind. The finding amazed colleagues,...
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“He who has attained the freedom of reason to any extent cannot, for a long time,...”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
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“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible...”
– Albert Camus
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Tolstoy: A Russian Life →
Count Lev Tolstoy is one of those writers who was as fascinating and complex as his novels and stories. A man so awful and quarrelsome to those around him, especially his long-suffering wife, was nonetheless able to produce masterpieces of serene introspection and humane insights. How could Tolstoy, a loner, a quintessential outsider all his life, understand and evoke the glittering social...
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Dear followers, I won’t post much for the next few days. I’m leaving for Seattle tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be back in Montreal next Wednesday. I honestly don’t care about the whole Christmas thing but it’s a good opportunity to visit my best friends and the city I used to live in. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys the holidays!
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