We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.
Masha GessenRead
How can non-existence get sick of itself? Everytime you wake up, you appear again out of nowhere. And so does everything else. Death just means the replacement of the usual morning waking with something else, something quite impossible even to think about. We don't even have the instrument to do it, because our mind & our world are the same thing.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the nature of existence and the cycle of life and death.
Victor Pelevin's quote delves into the philosophical contemplation of existence, suggesting that non-existence cannot truly harbor feelings like sickness because it is fundamentally devoid of awareness. In each moment of awakening, there is a resurgence of consciousness that illustrates the continuous interplay between life and the unknown that awaits after death, rendering it an incomprehensible concept tied deeply to our limited understanding of reality.
In practice
This quote could be used in a philosophical discussion about the nature of existence and consciousness.
We learn to think of history as something that has already happened, to other people. Our own moment, filled as it is with minutiae destined to be forgotten, always looks smaller in comparison.
Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum.
Memory offers up its gifts only when jogged by something in the present. It isn't a storehouse of fixed images and words, but a dynamic associative network in the brain that is never quiet and is subject to revision each time we retrieve an old picture or old words.
Nothing in the nature around us is evil. This needs to be repeated since one of the human ways of talking oneself into inhuman acts is to cite the supposed cruelty of nature.
There is nothing respecting which a man may be so long unconscious as of the extent and strength of his prejudices.
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