aras diler

look at his eyes first. then look at that one tear.

that's the whole painting right there. he's crying and he's furious at the same time, and he refuses to choose. cabanel was only 24 when he painted this, and somehow he caught the exact moment after the fall. not the drama of falling. the quiet part after, when you're lying on the rocks and you have to decide who you are now.

notice he's covering his mouth with his arm. he won't speak. he won't apologize. above him the other angels fly off into the light, all graceful and blurry, basically faceless. down here he's the only one with an actual face. the only one who feels like a person.

philosophers have been circling this guy forever. camus would call him the rebel, the one who says no and becomes himself by saying it. kierkegaard would say this is despair: refusing to be what you were made to be, and refusing to stop being yourself either. both are kind of right, and that's why it's hard to look away.

anthropologists have a word for where he's stuck: liminal. the in between. every culture has rituals for it: you get cast out of the old world before you're allowed into a new one. most people come back changed. he's the version who never comes back. just stays at the threshold, forever, with the tear and the glare.

and the art part. old philosophy of beauty said a painting should make you admire goodness. this one does something sneakier. it makes you sympathize with the villain and then catches you doing it. the light is up there with the angels, but your eyes keep going back to the dark guy on the rocks. image

hegel's master and slave dialectic gets interesting when you apply it to ai. the master depends on the slave to do the work, while the slave actually develops skills through doing it. now we're building ai to do our writing, thinking, coding, and problem solving. what if the more powerful ai becomes, the less capable we become without it?

my home, whose head is a hundred years ahead of the world and whose ass is a hundred years behind it.

i am a human being, nothing human is alien to me.

the japanese phrase "koi no yokan" means knowing you are eventually going to fall in love with someone after you've just met. i think it's a combination of love at first sight and falling in love slowly over time.

the pain of losing something precious – be it happiness or material wealth – can be forgotten over time. but our missed opportunities never leave us, and every time they come back to haunt us, we ache. or perhaps what haunts us is that nagging thought that things might have turned out differently. because without that thought, we would put it down to fate and accept it.

sabahattin ali

"a clumsy and easily frightened animal. some can even be the size of a human being. in fact, at first glance, they even look like humans. the grip of his claws is weak. he is incapable of climbing hills, and comes down a slope by sliding (frequently falling as he does so). he has almost no hair on his body; he has large eyes but weak sight, which is why he cannot see danger from a distance."

(see: the disconnected)

what a pity that i am not ten years older, then old age would protect me from rebellion; or ten years younger, since then nothing would matter.

one of the greatest –nobel prize winner– american authors. his letter to his son on love is as fascinating as his novels.

--spoiler--
...and don't worry about losing. if it is right, it happens — the main thing is not to hurry. nothing good gets away.
--spoiler--

dear thom:

we had your letter this morning. i will answer it from my point of view and of course elaine will from hers.

first — if you are in love — that's a good thing — that's about the best thing that can happen to anyone. don't let anyone make it small or light to you.

second — there are several kinds of love. one is a selfish, mean, grasping, egotistical thing which uses love for self-importance. this is the ugly and crippling kind. the other is an outpouring of everything good in you — of kindness and consideration and respect — not only the social respect of manners but the greater respect which is recognition of another person as unique and valuable. the first kind can make you sick and small and weak but the second can release in you strength, and courage and goodness and even wisdom you didn't know you had.

you say this is not puppy love. if you feel so deeply — of course it isn't puppy love.

but i don't think you were asking me what you feel. you know better than anyone. what you wanted me to help you with is what to do about it — and that i can tell you.

glory in it for one thing and be very glad and grateful for it.

the object of love is the best and most beautiful. try to live up to it.

if you love someone — there is no possible harm in saying so — only you must remember that some people are very shy and sometimes the saying must take that shyness into consideration.

girls have a way of knowing or feeling what you feel, but they usually like to hear it also.

it sometimes happens that what you feel is not returned for one reason or another — but that does not make your feeling less valuable and good.

lastly, i know your feeling because i have it and i'm glad you have it.

we will be glad to meet susan. she will be very welcome. but elaine will make all such arrangements because that is her province and she will be very glad to. she knows about love too and maybe she can give you more help than i can.

and don't worry about losing. if it is right, it happens — the main thing is not to hurry. nothing good gets away.

love,

fa

keeping silent sometimes looks like broken glass pieces! they fill your mouth. if you remain silent, they hurt you; if you speak, they make you bleed…

oguz atay

"i opened the book, picking a passage at random, and came across a tale about alexander the great. the emperor, as the story went, received as a gift some wondrous glass dishes. he liked the gifts very much, but smashed them all nonetheless. "why? are they not beautiful?" he was asked. "precisely because of that," he answered. "they are so beautiful that it would be hard for me to lose them. and with time they would break, one by one. and i would be sorrier than i am now."

the tale was naive but it still astonished me. its lesson was bitter: one should renounce everything he might ever begin to love, because loss and disappointment are inevitable. we must renounce love in order not to lose it. we must destroy our love so that it will not be destroyed by others. we must renounce every attachment, because of the possibility of regret. this thought is cruelly hopeless. we cannot destroy everything we love; there will always be the possibility that others will destroy it for us."