#existentialism

If man merely sat back and thought about his impending termination, and his terrifying insignificance and aloneness in the cosmos, he would surely go mad, or succumb to a numbing sense of futility. Why, he might ask himself, should he bother to write a great symphony, or strive to make a living, or even to love another, when he is no more than a momentary microbe on a dust mote whirling through the unimaginable immensity of space? Those of us who are forced by their own sensibilities to view their lives in this perspective — who recognize that there is no purpose they can comprehend and that amidst a countless myriad of stars their existence goes unknown and unchronicled — can fall prey all too easily to the ultimate anomie. The world's religions, for all their parochialism, did supply a kind of consolation for this great ache. ↗

— Stanley Kubrick

#love

When a lack of white blood cells exposes the horizon of being, one has to make a choice. To cloister yourself away in a germ-free environment, alive but alone, or to embrace the woman you love and catch your death of cold at the marriage ceremony? What a great show. It’s inner-directed script was unmatched by any other soap opera. ↗

— Benson Bruno

#existentialism #immune-system #soap-operas #death

But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination. ↗

— Albert Camus

#war #death

What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough to follow its own commandments: I mean, not to kill, not to take the lives of others to justify itself. ↗

— Ernest Becker

#mental-health #death

Obviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals. ↗

— Ernest Becker

#religion #death

Te leven betekent strikt genomen niets anders dan dag voor dag zelfmoord op te schuiven. ↗

— Stig Dagerman

#life-and-death #suicide #death

I wonder if being sane means disregarding the chaos that is life, pretending only an infinitesimal segment of it is reality. ↗

— Rabih Alameddine

#art

Remember you are never really alone. Although it may feel like it for very long stretches of time. ↗

— Steven L. Peck

#existentialism #hell #solitude #humor

How hollow to have no secrets left; you shake yourself and nothing rattles. You're boneless as an anemone. ↗

— Andrew Sean Greer

#secrets #marriage