Lifestyle and Choice
The idea is to live a full life and live it well in the brief moment in which we forget the shared horror of our situation.
Connoisseurs of solitude usually don't have to endure it.
Opposed to homosexuality? Don't be one. There, that's settled...
If all were entirely sane there would be little music, sculpture, art; few novels, even less poetry. The contribution of the well-adjusted human being is the pencil-sharpener--or the toupee.
Those in favor of abortion should just say so; clinging to euphemisms serves no good purpose.
Even if abortion is everything it's opponents say it is, it's still none of your business--or mine.
Those who most strenuously oppose the concept of suicide (doctor-assisted, etc.) are also those who fear the prospect of death the greatest (their religious pretensions to the contrary).
Suicide is overrated. I would rather have a lifetime of garden-variety misery than anything that might lie beyond (at least another lifetime of it, at that). Not a single gambling man in his right mind would do it either.
Living in a world that we cannot substantially change, it inevitably becomes a question of honor.
This world gives us innumerable chances for happiness; the fact that we do not seize upon them cannot be considered an indictment of it.
I have looked Death in the face--and found nothing remotely beneficial or enlightening about the experience.
The tip-off? When one's life begins to resemble a cautionary tale, certainly...
Depression is only unpleasant when you resist it.
Post-industrial society forces us to embrace what we would naturally abhor. We lack adventure; we lack the more basic feeling of freedom.
Do the dangerous thing. Do we know what can be expected if this advice is followed? No; we know what happens if it is not.
Fear of the future derives from an intolerable present.
Lesson: Never underestimate the lure of past entanglements. That's why they're called entanglements.
Years of inexperience can be made right in a moment.
Aphorism: If the shoe's on the other foot, wear it.
What will finally save us is a focus on what we love, on what really makes this life worth all the trouble. Our own passions may yet pull us out of the soup.
If you can't be useful, be interesting.
If you can't take the heat, don't eat the chili peppers.
