luni, 22 februarie 2010

Status anxiety, Alain de Botton

"But the tragedian draws us close to an almost unbearable truth: that every folly of which a human being has been guilty in the course of history can be traced back to aspects of our own nature; that we bear within ourselves the whole of the human condition, in its worst and best aspects, so that we too might be capable of anything under the right, or rather the very wrong circumstances."

"We can overcome a feeling of unimportance not by making ourselves more important but by recognizing the relative unimportance of everyone. Our concern with who is a few millimetres taller than us can give way to an awe for things 1000 million times larger than us, a force which we may be moved to call infinity, eternity - or simply, and perhaps most usefully, God."

"But there is no such thing as a stranger, a Christian would insist, there can only be an impression of strangeness born out of failure to aknowledge that others share in our own needs and weaknesses. Nothing could be more noble, or more fully human, than to perceive that we are indeed fundamentally, were it matters, just like everyone else."

vineri, 12 februarie 2010

About mathematics

"as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality"

Albert Einstein

joi, 4 februarie 2010

Mortal Kombat

Daniel se luptă cu Leucemia. El este tânăr, plin de curaj, are de partea lui o soţie, colegii de la muncă şi din martie şi un băieţel care ar avea o viaţă mult mai liniştită cu doi părinţi sănătoşi care să-l sprijine. Ea e nemiloasă, ucide fără să discrimineze între adulţi şi copii şi e genul de monstru care nu dispare doar dacă strângi tare din ochi.

Ne place să credem că viaţa nu are preţ dar în cazul ăsta s-a pus deja o etichetă, 150.000 €. Suma donată s-a triplat în timpul în care m-am hotărât eu să scriu un post. Eu o să îmi pun banii pe Daniel.