Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum

''Sometimes, you just need a break. In a beautiful place, alone. To figure things out.'' - Unknown

(Aug 7, 2019 05:47 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]“To be silent the whole day long, see no newspaper, hear no radio, listen to no gossip, be thoroughly and completely lazy, thoroughly and completely indifferent to the fate of the world is the finest medicine a man can give himself.” ― Henry Miller

There are literally occasional weeks where I wouldn't know what's going on in the world if it wasn't for not being able avoid family/colleagues talking about events or coming across "ordinary news" while browsing through science and particular interest headlines.

“The coolest most amazing people I have met in my life, I said, are the ones who are not very interested in power or money, but who are very interested in laughter and courage and grace under duress and holding hands against the darkness, and finding new ways to solve old problems, and being attentive and tender and kind to every sort of being, especially dogs and birds, and of course children.”
― Brian Doyle, Chicago

“Life will be wonderful when men no longer fear dying. When the last superstitions are thrown out and we meet death with the same equanimity as life. No longer will children's minds be twisted by evil gods whose fantastic origin is in those barbaric tribes who feared death and lightning, who feared life. That's it: life is the villain to those who preach reward in death, through grace and eternal bliss, or through dark revenge.”
― Gore Vidal, Messiah

(Aug 10, 2019 07:19 PM)Magical Realist Wrote: [ -> ]“As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”
― Gore Vidal

That's why what happened with Daenerys in the final season of GoT didn't really surprise or disappoint me. She was "liberating" people in unusual or suspect ways before then. It wasn't until she hooked up with Jon Snow's mission that I started feeling for the first that she might really be firmly on the protagonist side, rather than somebody of ambiguous nature. What instead irked me about the season was the other factors... like too few episodes to develop events in a non-hurried way, and possibly the dead-end fates of two or three characters other than Daenerys.

“Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word 'understanding.”
― Werner Karl Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science

''You don't have to live like everyone else. You'll probably be happier, if you don't.'' - Joshua Becker

“Sometimes, you have to step outside of the person you've been and remember the person you were meant to be. The person you want to be. The person you are.”
― H.G. Wells

“It's worth making time to find the things that really stir your soul. That’s what makes you really feel alive. You have to say ‘no’ to other things you’re used to, and do it with all your heart.”
― Roy T. Bennett