Words&Dirt

“I don’t know what the right thing to do is; I sometimes think I know too much, I’ve studied too much, learned too much, remembered too much. It all seems to average out, somehow; like dust that settles over…whatever machinery we carry inside us that leads us to act, and puts the same weight everywhere, so that always you can see good and bad on each side, and always there are arguments, precedents for every possible course of action…so of course one ends up doing nothing. Perhaps that’s only right; perhaps that’s what evolution requires, to leave the field free for younger, unencumbered minds, and those not afraid to act.”

––Use of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks, loc. 3942-50

“Look, it is guaranteed that you are in flux and get to live amidst the flux. And it is good that you are now able to live in and appreciate the moment. But there is something wrong with your attitude. Your craving/attachment is too strong. This is probably caused by the fact that you still hold on to the illusion that you are a permanent thing that can somehow possess or appropriate the flux. You aren’t, so you can’t. Enjoy the flux, but stop trying to possess it.”

––The Bodhisattva’s Brain: Buddhism Naturalized, by Owen Flanagan, pg. 129-30