As the Buddhist monks say : “poverty is our shield”

A swail (swale) is defined as “a shallow ditch”. Which rhymes with shallow bitch.

Icarus. The wings made of wax and stuff. He got too high so the gods slapped him.

Total metaphor of course. He was a shaman, took too much shrooms, had a legendarily bad trip.

Your opinion is shallow, conformist fluff.

Bullshit.

HP Lovecraft is a national treasure.

His detractors are potatoes.

If only everybody would conform to the consensus morality. We’d be living in caves, eating garbage and telling really stupid stories but at least we’d all be non-shitshow human beings.

Another thing.

One of the private universes went bad. So they locked the door. A deeply scary idea. A sealed cellular automaton based universe. Perfectly deterministic therefore ultimately incapable of escaping its history. Perfectly sealed therefore incapable of salvation from the outside. And once the gate is lost, perfectly lost forever.

It’s similar to the Solipsistic Nation guy. Trapped in a personal universe where he’s enjoying climbing a skyscraper forever. His memory automatically edited so he doesn’t get bored

I think about that a bit. It’s got a deep scariness. nightmareish

Yes, reading has an upside and also a downside. I can discuss both and everything in-between. I am a magical unicorn, relatively speaking.

Well I figured that we are all pretty familiar with the upside of reading so describing that would be totally redundant. Whereas the downside is never discussed, so I focused on that.

But yes, how foolish of me, to expect a nuanced discussion.

Despite the hugeness of its effects, I’m inclined to the “set of tools” model mself. I hold my focused attention upon a thing. I hold it there as I would hold my fngertip upon a spot on the wall. It’s as simple as that. It is a thing that I can do. A power.

Whenever I let it all hang out here, I invariably end up offending 99% of the people. And that’s frustrating and dull.

I have yet to offend you, apparently. So allow me to let it hang out a bit more.

Magic is like science, but lighter on the models. In that observation is key.

Or like art, but lighter on the art-making. In that esoteric stuff is touched.

Habit? Inertia?

Here’s a story that explores similar ground.

Divided by Infinity

It’s in The Perseids and Other Stories By Robert Charles Wilson

Thank you. This is the kind of maturity and insight that I have come to expect on Lemmy.

Yes zing

Yes, reading is important and good. But here I am indicating a different aspect of it. Like many things in reality it has several aspects.

Nothing is an unalloyed good. That’s reality for you.

We can discuss the good of reading and also the bad of it. Right?

Maybe it was a mark of his alienness. A fundamental human pleasure rendered painful. He was on his hundredth universe after all.

Well it does tend to stick. So if you repeat it within that sticking period then yes, it becomes the normal permanent mode. And memory of any alternative is lost.

But sure, not necessarily permanent.