live reads

There is no moral of the story—that's the moral of the story.

But we can't accept that people can have different lifestyles than our own. We can't understand that created that order, despite its apparent absurdity and foolishness, because it was the only way they could make it in this world. Not only can we not understand it, but we also don't even try to accept it. So, we look at them with pity

No, it's because everyone has their own clock.

Home is such a funny word. We make the decision to live somewhere and then it's called "home." We eat there, work there, get married there, buy a house there. We root for the home team and become friends with people solely because they're from the same part of the world. But I've had a lot of bad times in Korea. Something was just off—spatially, temporally. I Know now what a happy life is. I've been on a long journey. I don't think "home" is that important. To really know yourself, you sometimes have to become a nomad and forget about home.

In fact, if you think about it, life itself is magic.

You may never discover magic. But it won't be because magic doesn't exist. It'll be because you stopped dreaming. Magic exists all around us. In fact, magicians are quite common.

By the year 2100, all machine will look like humans. And if that's not the case, all humans will look like machines. It's got to be one or the other. I know this because I can see that humans and objects are starting to resemble one another.

lol the phallic toothpicks

As someone struggling with poor memory, the chapter about memory mosaicers was...rough.

The entire modern economy is based on anxiety, and as everyone knows, anxiety is the moral enemy of a good night's sleep. And insomnia only leads to more anxiety—it's a vicious cycle. Thus we are always anxious, internally and externally. Conversely, primitive humans were much more spiritual beings. They worked when the sun was out, and they dreamed and rested once it set. In other words, in order to live properly, you have to follow divine providence and live have your life working, and the other half dreaming.

I love the gingko tree man and his eventual fate—mostly. I know it is supposed to be tragic that this man becomes so obsessed with this tree and gives up his entire life for it. But really, why doesn't the tree deserve to live? The sad part is that he and the tree eventually die (well, in theory, yet to be fully confirmed because I don't trust the syndicate). The man wanted to give his life to the tree. Why shouldn't he? What makes on life inherently more valuable than another?

And isn't that a little ironic? It's not some external threat from Earth. No, it's the order we humans made ourselves—an order in which we can no longer survive.