(Source: theroamer, via lostinamerica)
Philosophical Parsnip
Americana, good books, and the occasional poem
Patocka used to say that the most interesting thing about responsibility is that we carry it with us everywhere.
only by creating a better life can a better system be developed
The essential aims of life are present naturally in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity’s rightful dignity, for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existences. Yet, at the same time, each person is capable, to a greater or lesser degree, of coming to terms with living within the lie. Each person somehow succumbs to a profane trivialization of his or her inherent humanity, and to utilitarianism. In everyone there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life. This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the very notion of identity itself.
Dragon Checkers
This is Water, David Foster Wallace’s 2005 commencement speech from Kenyon College
Out on the #farm
