‘Did you ever love someone who didn’t love you back? I know you know who I’m taking about…did you ever try to let someone back in when they come to you with what feels like a softness in their eyes… and then you find out about a book, a salacious best seller filled with misremembered cobwebs and fucking bullshit’ … it’s so LOUSTAT OVER #TheVampireLestat
When I was young I thought things were bad because solutions were complicated, and now I’m older and realize things are bad because the solutions are often simple, but they would inconvenience affluent people, or those who aspire to be, and religious fanatics.
Feels bleak that people have grown so sick of having to read and learn, two of life’s greatest and most rewarding pleasures, that they built machines to spare them from ever having to know anything again. I feel as though I’m living in a prequel to Fahrenheit 451.
The fact that you can read a book written by someone who has been dead for two centuries and feel less alone than you do in most rooms full of living people is either the most beautiful or the most heartbreaking thing about literature and I genuinely cannot decide which.
There is so much to read. There’s so much I want to learn about politics and anthropology and folklore and herbalism and medieval history and the natural world. I could spend my life reading & never come to the end of learning. How is it that some people don’t read at all?
“Why should I care about history / literature / philosophy / art” is so boring. Just being alive is a remarkable thing, and demands all our curiosity and commitment. Love learning. Love your neighbor. Shun cynicism and embrace fascination. It’s all beautiful and it all matters.
There are raspberries in the world. And moss. And people who wave at trains. There are books with cracked spines and sweaters that smell like home. There are forests that keep growing back like nothing ever tried to end them. You haven’t missed life. It’s still happening.
I can't believe I exist on a planet with the aurora borealis, coral reefs, snow-capped Alps, mossy stones, sparkling waterfalls, trees that communicate with each other, bees that dance to show the way, and ants that build, and I have to do... like a career.
It’s very telling how the only things that get you accused of being “performative” are reading and having a vocabulary. It’s never occurred to these folks that some of us truly enjoy books & cultivating an intellectual life. Don’t let them shame you into abandoning your brain.
I don’t want comfort or convenience. I want abundant wildlife, I want a planet covered in forests & greenery, I want breathable air, I want literate kids, I want a revival of reading for pleasure and the arts, I want a culture not in danger of being dismantled by the tech-addled