You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
Haruki MurakamiRead
They take the circuits out of people’s brains that make it possible for them to think for themselves. Their world is like the one that George Orwell depicted in his novel. I’m sure you realize that there are plenty of people who are looking for exactly that kind of brain death. It makes life a lot easier. You don’t have to think about difficult things, just shut up and do what your superiors tell you to do.
Interpretation
The quote warns against the dangers of losing one's ability to think critically and independently.
Haruki Murakami's quote emphasizes the consequences of a society that discourages independent thought, likening it to the dystopian reality presented in George Orwell's works. It suggests that many individuals may prefer the simplicity of blind obedience over the complexities and challenges of critical thinking, leading to a form of intellectual 'brain death' where echoing the commands of authority becomes the norm.
In practice
During a seminar on free will, this quote can be used to discuss the importance of thinking critically.
You are 27 or 28 right? It is very tough to live at that age. When nothing is sure. I have sympathy with you.
Memories and thoughts age, just as people do. But certain thoughts can never age, and certain memories can never fade.
I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.
Everybody burns out in this world; amateur, pro, it doesn't matter, they all burn out, they all get hurt, the OK guys and the not-OK guys both. That's why everybody takes out a little insurance. I've got some too, here at the bottom of the heap. That way, you manage to survive if you burn out. If you're all by yourself and don't belong anywhere, you go down once, and you're out. Finished.
Life is so uncertain: you never know what could happen. One way to deal with that is to keep your pajamas washed.
You know what I think?" she says. "That people's memories are maybe the fuel they burn to stay alive. Whether those memories have any actual importance or not, it doesn't matter as far as the maintenance of life is concerned. They're all just fuel. Advertising fillers in the newspaper, philosophy books, dirty pictures in a magazine, a bundle of ten-thousand-yen bills: when you feed 'em to the fire, they're all just paper.
It is certain that the easy and obvious philosophy will always, with the generality of mankind, have preference above the accurate.
Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.
The policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them. Whereas by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, and laws: in a word, soon become one people.
And what greater calamity can fall upon a nation than the loss of worship.
Religion, which never intervenes directly in the government of American society, should therefore be considered as the first of their political institutions
Who knoweth if to die be but to live, and that called life by mortals be but death?
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