Literature not only illuminated another’s experience, it provided, I believed, the richest material for moral reflection. My brief forays into the formal ethics of analytic philosophy felt dry as a bone, missing the messiness and weight of
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“Genius or fool, you don't live in the world alone. You can hide underground or you can build a wall around yourself, but somebody's going to come along and screw up the works.”
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”
― Man's Search for Meaning
― Man's Search for Meaning

“Most human activities are predicated on the assumption that life goes on. If you take that premise away, what is there left?”
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

“It's like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.”
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
― Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Kaan’s 2024 Year in Books
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