colonial inn sign, bossier city, louisiana, 1982

I sincerely wish that the people who defend PhD education were better at it.

A: this is objectively untrue.
B: the author’s premise is that critical thinking/deep reading/PhD soft skills are valuable career skills, so it’s all fine. (Nevermind that even though they are, they’re not golden tickets).

So much of our trouble can be traced to stunted development framed as prowess

They are terrified by their own mortality.

So many lives we people live.

I wonder if some people don't perceive their lives as discontinuous. Wonder whether always being catered to, never being forced to make decisions, makes a person feel unbroken.

I presume some people never view their past selves from a critical perspective, never grow.

Incredible how many people don’t understand that their longing for the past isn’t actually about the world as it was; it’s about the fact that they were a child.

Immortality is a child's answer to death anxiety, not a real thing with which humanity will ever have to contend. No king's alchemist ever granted him eternal life, and it isn't going to start happening now just because of Computer.