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Caspar David Friedrich: Das große Gehege, 1832.Wikipedia.

Goodreads rating 4.37. Wolff describes his experiences in rural Malaysia and in the jungle among the Sng’oi, where he learns (rather than being taught) new forms of awareness and knowledge. I saw clearly—perhaps for the first time—that most people, even scientists, can see the world only from one point of view: their own. [p. 146] Malay culture values halus—soft, gentle, polite—and despises kasar.

Translated by Gregory Rabassa. Goodreads rating 4.10. …the secret of a good old age is simply an honorable pact with solitude. [p. 205] … and once again she shuddered with the evidence that time was not passing, as she had just admitted, but that it was turning in a circle. [p. 341] Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared...

Goodreads rating 4.19. A sweeping novel of 950 pages (!) which starts on page 960. The Nobel laureate describes hundreds of characters, with even more names; immerses in countless locations, languages, and creeds. Her protagonists always remain strangers. There is something wonderful in being a stranger, in being foreign, something to be relished, something as alluring as candy. It is good not to be able to understand a language, not to know the customs, to glide like a spirit among...

Goodreads rating 4.36. Spiritual enlightenment is not about mysticism or happiness, although the latter might follow from the former. It is not about the “true self” but about the non-self; about radical questioning and truth seeking that ditches all putative certainties; about watching the unfolding of life with joy and interest; about accepting contradictions.

Goodreads rating 4.22. Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour. … Surely there is no greater gift to a man than that which turns all his aims into parching lips and all life into a fountain. And in this lies my honour and my reward,—That whenever I come to the fountain to drink I find the living water itself thirsty; And it drinks me while I drink it. … If these be vague words, then seek not to...

Goodreads rating 3.76. An inquiry into language and personal experience. Bieri analyzes notions of free will, their basis or vacuousness, and their consequences. A powerful dissection of language and experience. Wille ist bedingt durch Historie. Ein unbedingt freier Wille wäre nicht der Wille der Person; er wäre unberechenbar und zufällig — nicht das, nach dem sich Verfechter eines unbedingt freien Willens sehnen. Freier und unfreier Wille sind bedingt. Bedingt freier Wille hat...

Goodreads rating 4.39. Concise, to the point, insightful.

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In 12 Rules for Life, Jordan Peterson argues for the kind of values instilled by a socially conservative parental home: Aim for paradise, but concentrate on today. Meaning is key, not happiness. Assume responsibility. Listen carefully, speak clearly, and tell the truth. And stand straight, even in the face of adversity. Here they are, Peterson’s 12 rules: Stand up straight with your shoulders back Treat yourself like you would someone you are responsible for helping Make friends with...