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The book I was reading I was rereading. Because some time before that terrible day I had reached a juncture in my reading life that is familiar to those who have been there: in the allotted time left to me on earth, should I read more and more new books, or should I cease with that vain consumption—vain because it is endless—and begin to reread those books which had given me the intensest plea...
Mary Ruefle. 2003. "Someone Reading a Book Is a Sign of Order in the World"
Oct 27, 2024
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I have, since I read this short essay by Didion, printed a copy and pinned it to my workspaces, both at work and at home. It is a reminder that it takes effort and courage to own our mistakes. Below are excerpts of the essay that were most striking. To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting...
Joan Didion. 1961. "Self-Respect: Its Source, Its Power."
Oct 14, 2024
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"We have been so desensitized by a hundred and fifty years of ceaselessly expanding technical prowess that we think nothing less complex and showy than a computer or a jet bomber deserves to be called “technology” at all. As if linen were the same thing as flax — as if paper, ink, wheels, knives, clocks, chairs, aspirin pills, were natural objects, born with us like our teeth and fingers —...
Excerpt from "A Rant about 'Technology'"
Jan 30, 2024
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