You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
David Foster WallaceRead
So which is the lie? Hard or soft? Silence or time?
Interpretation
The quote questions the nature of truth and deception in our perceptions of reality.
David Foster Wallace's quote encourages reflection on the complexities of truth and lies as they relate to the human experience. It prompts us to consider how we perceive hard versus soft truths, and whether silence or the passage of time can distort our understanding of reality. This philosophical inquiry suggests that our interpretations may be subjective and influenced by various factors, leading to deeper questions about knowledge and belief.
In practice
During a philosophical discussion about reality versus perception.
You will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do.
Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence.
It seems important to find ways of reminding ourselves that most 'familiarity' is meditated and delusive.
Under fun's new administration, writing fiction becomes a way to go deep inside yourself and illuminate precisely the stuff you don't want to see or let anyone else see, and this stuff usually turns out (paradoxically) to be precisely the stuff all writers and readers share and respond to, feel.
Acceptance is usually more a matter of fatigue than anything else.
Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay close attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like youβve never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and itβs like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.
World Government is not only possible, it is inevitable; and when it comes, it will appeal to patriotism in its truest sense,in its only sense, the patriotism of humans who love their national heritages so deeply that they wish to preserve them in safety for the common good.
And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it.
Our collective freedom... depends on our ability to defend the rights of others.
An eminent reputation is as dangerous as a bad one.
There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live, and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing and of dying for it.
XXIX Traveler, there is no path. The path is made by walking. Traveller, the path is your tracks And nothing more. Traveller, there is no path The path is made by walking. By walking you make a path And turning, you look back At a way you will never tread again Traveller, there is no road Only wakes in the sea.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.