I had another epiphany today. I asked myself some questions and tried to answer them. What is the point in the stuff I do? Why do I care? Do we find meaning in the journey? Meaning in caring? Asking these very questions gives me the reasons. The end of the goals does not matter as much, like all things in life, we know it ends eventually.
The point is living through the hard and good times. To be curious, to see what happens next. Anticipation, humor and sometimes anger. Admiring beauty in nature or a beautiful lady. More important is the love of what you do. The feeling you get when you get something done or realize you managed to do something you previously thought impossible.
But most of all, the point is to not know. The point is to find out. The point is to love and see.
To cheesy, well maybe I have wacky thoughts. I’ll leave you with some interesting quotes. These are from Science Fiction authors, some I’ve read whole books; wish I could make time for all of them. Quotes like these answers some of my questions and some of them hits the you, face on.
“Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.”
“I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”
“Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science fiction gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Isaac Asimov
“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”
“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.”
“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting pieces together.”
Ray Bradbury
“It really seems to me that in the midst of great tragedy, there is always the possibility that something terribly funny will happen.”
“I like her; I could watch her the rest of my life. She has breasts that smile.”
“It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.”
“Certainly it constitutes bad news when the people who agree with you are buggier than batshit.”
Philip K. Dick
“Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.”
“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
“Once a month, some women act like men act all the time.”
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.” (Dune)
“If you ask ‘Should we be in space?’ you ask a nonsense question. We are in space. We will be in space.”
“Show me a completely smooth operation and I’ll show you someone who’s covering mistakes. Real boats rock.”
“Absolute power does not corrupt absolutely, absolute power attracts the corruptible.”
Frank Herbert
“That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers…What they really hate are lousy programmers.”
“The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don’t have a space program, it’ll serve us right!”
Larry Niven
“If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.”
John Scalzi
“Science is magic that works.”
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies. We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
“I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I can’t help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap.”
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut
“Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.” (The Time Machine)
“Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.”
“The path of least resistance is the path of the loser.”
H.G. Wells
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
“I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all of my life, right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.”
Ernest Cline, Ready Player One
“A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt.”
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness
“I simply regard romantic comedies as a sub genre of sci-fi, in which the world created therein has different rules than my regular human world.”
Mindy Kaling, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
“In my life I have found two things of priceless worth – learning and loving. Nothing else – not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake – can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say ‘I have learned’ and ‘I have loved,’ you will also be able to say ‘I have been happy.”
Arthur C. Clarke, Rama II
“All he cares about here on the edge of forever, is her. He does not want to die. Not because he is afraid. Simply because he cannot bear the thought of leaving her behind.”
Amie Kaufman, Illuminae
