Arm of the Sphinx

We are, each of us, a multitude. I am not the man I was this morning, nor the man of yesterday. I am a throng of myself queued through time. We are, gentle reader, each a crowd within a crowd.

The man or woman who is rarely lost, rarely discovers anything new.

History is a love letter to tyrants written in the blood of the overrun, the forgotten, the expunged!

It is not cynical to admit that the past has been turned into a fiction. It is a story, not a fact. The real has been erased. Whole eras have been added and removed. Wars have been aggrandized, and human struggle relegated to the margins. Villains are redressed as heroes. Generous, striving, imperfect men and women have been stripped of their flaws or plucked of their virtues and turned into figurines of morality or depravity. Whole societies have been fixed with motive and vision and equanimity where there was none. Suffering has been recast as noble sacrifice!

The tradition among libraries of boasting about the number of volumes in their collection is well established, but surely, it is not aggregation that makes a library; it is dissemination. Perhaps libraries should bang on about how many volumes are on loan, are presently off crowding nightstands, and circulating through piles on the mantel, and weighing down purses. Yes, it is somewhat vexing to thread through the stacks of a library, only to discover an absence rather than the sought-after volume, but once the ire subsides, doesn’t one feel a sense of community? The gaps in a library are like footprints in the sand; they show us where others have gone before; they assure us we are not alone.

The essential lesson of the zoetrope is this: movement, indeed all progress, even the passage of time, is an illusion. Life is the repetition of stillness.

that’s what hope is. Stubbornness. Refusing to go down.

Some friendships develop like flowers in a garden: they are conscientiously planted and nurtured. The ground about them is kept clear of competition. Then, after some weeks and months of incremental growth and laborious pruning, a flower blooms. Such cultivated friendships are agreeable and convenient, if not enduring. Other friendships seem to arise spontaneously, like an egg in a nest or a freckle upon an arm, and these are often mystifying, as both parties are left to wonder how exactly this unexpected affection took hold.

Of course I have a plan,” he said, clapping his hands. “We are going to die.

Yes, I hear that people who suffer from brain damage are quite happy. That's what I always wanted for you, Edith: for you to be happy, no matter how many blows to the head it takes.

We all have weaknesses. Not everyone has strengths.” “I

It’s easy to judge a life not led.

Like it or not, we are pirates. Saying please and thank you doesn’t change that. There are no devils by degree, no gentlemen thieves. There’s just strong and weak, the willing and the dead.

Perhaps he should turn back. Perhaps this was reckless. But then, what was there to return to? Confusion? Ignorance? The inevitable slide into a life of violence? Surely, it was better to go forward into ruin than backward into rot.

Iren looked the Captain and first mate up and down, taking in Edith’s split lip, the gory stains on her tattered scarf and the Captain’s shirt, the sling that pinned her mighty arm to her breast, the gash of blood on his forehead, the glowing dust that frosted them from hat to boot, and the strong smell of smoke wafting from their clothes. “How was the zoo?” she asked.

If one machine could do the work of so many men, what would be left for those men to do? In a thousand years, when the last human work was taken over by an automatic engine, would it conclude the liberation or the eslavement of the race?

But what was excruciating at first turned cathartic the more he talked. In telling his story, he discovered that he had developed definite ideas about his own motives and decisions. These ideas seemed to have formed in the ether of emotions and dreams, that wooly fog that lay outside the footlights of the conscious mind. They were not large revelations, but were rather like the little epiphanies one suffers and enjoys over a morning cup of tea.

It is not cynical to admit the past has been turned into a fiction. It is a story, not a fact. The real has been erased. Whole eras have been added or removed. Wars have been aggrandized, and human struggle relegated to the margins. Villains are redressed as heroes. Generous, striving, imperfect men and women have been stripped of their flaws or plucked of their virtues and turned into figurines of morality or depravity. Whole societies have been fixed with motive and visions and equanimity where there was none. Suffering has been recast as noble sacrifice! Do you know why the history of the Tower is in such turmoil? Because too many powerful men are fighting for the pen, fighting to write their story over our dead bodies. They know what is at stake: immortality, the character of civilization, and influence beyond the ages. They are fighting to see who gets to mislead our grandchildren.

I’m pretty sure that’s what hope is. Stubbornness. Refusing to go down.

Myth is the story of what we do not understand in ourselves.

I am not the man I was,” Senlin said abruptly, as if he were afraid to delay the confession any longer. His friends around the table looked to him expectantly. This would be the apology then, and knowing Senlin it would be long-winded, roundabout, and obscure. They collectively braced themselves for the oration.

I’ve never once in my life looked forward to wearing a dress, so it’s nothing I’ll miss. But I wonder if anyone will ever look me in the eye again, or if they’ll be too busy gawking at this—tractor.” “Nonsense. It’s nothing a nice scarf can’t fix.

A historian begins with an ending, and then he concocts a pleasing cause.

There is little in the world more curative than a picnic. Some call for doctors and tonics when they fall ill. I call for friends and wine. “But,” you say, “what if you are really dying?” Of course I am! We all are! The question is, gentle reader, in these uncertain times, would you rather be a patient or a picnicker?

The origin of a myth is like that of a river. It begins in obscurity as a collection of tentative, unassociated flows. It streams downhill along the path of least resistance, seeking consensus. Other fables join it, and the myth broadens and sets. We build cities on the banks of myth.

Books are seldom more than an author elaborating upon their obsession with the grammar of self-doubt.

But that is the point. Machines do not serve us; we serve them. If they all vanished from the earth tomorrow, our race would carry on. But when we remove our hand from the machine, it dies.

Do not allow small people to make large impressions. Do not fritter your beauty upon mirrors. Do not make wishes, for wishes only curse the life you have. Never forget, you stand at the end of a long line of short lives.