Books

I read the three books, the most I had read in a while. In fact, I finished the last 2 in less than 2 weeeks from the time I picked up book 2 in February. On the main characters: Faraday - Wise and human. Citra - Brilliant and strongwilled. Rowan - Ruthless and romantic. Curie - Protective and Respectable. Goddard - Cunny, Capricious but worse in the fictional world, Damningly Unrelatable. Tolliver - Liked this character. He was written like a person. Thunderhead - Provided a way to imagine God’s magnanimity. Lines that made me feel and think: “And Morrison was left to wrestle with himself. He hated doing that, because he was a formidable opponent.” This made me laugh, it was like looking in a mirror. “To say he was an indecisive man was an understatement. He might have seemed confident to others, but the truth was he’d never made a decision that he hadn’t come to regret on some level—which is why he often let decisions be made for him.” “I long for the luxury of being impractical. It would add… texture… to my existence.” ““Time passes so slowly, so smoothly,” it said. “And the atmospheric conditions! A tailwind at 8.6 kilometers per hour easing the flow of twenty-nine knots, the air at 70% humidity, but the numbers are nothing compared to the feel of it upon the skin”” Here, The Thunderhead highlights the satisfaction and even rarer, the beauty of experiencing things over analyzing them, something I stand to benefit from. “The rest of the world saw them both as symbols. Intangible light to guide them in the darkness. She understood now why ancient peoples turned their heroes into constellations.” This solidified my understanding of the word “luminaries” or naming stars and planets after heroes or great people. You want something to highlight and remind you of their greatness. It gives hope when needed. “As long as when bad things happened, they happened somewhere else, to someone they didn’t know, it was not their problem.” This got at the heart of a problematic philosophy of mine. I have begun to fix it - especially in my mind - as I can better reason through the funnel from the current victims to me, but the practicality and allure of this thinking is not lost on me. “As long as remorse is sincere, and one is willing to make recompense, there is no purpose to suffering.” Perhaps this is part of why God forgives, because our suffering post remorse and repentance has no point. “Thou shalt lead an exemplary life in word and deed, and keep a journal of each and every day.” To me it seems that the latter is what evokes the first. Poring over myself - successes and mistakes - helps me understand or even define what a good life could look like for me, talk less of an exemplary one. “It’s not about age, it’s about stagnation.” A character said this when discussing choosing who to glean. ““He’s always asking me how I am, and if there’s anything I need. And if there is, he always makes sure I get it. Just last week I asked for a—” “—No, not that kind of talking,” said Rowan, cutting her off. “I mean real talking. Has he ever hinted as to why you matter so much to him?”” Here Rowan describes small and big talk. I enjoy the distinction. “Wailing that the sky is falling does nothing to stop it.” Do something. “You can’t change the tide by spitting in the sea.” Accept what you can’t change. ““People are vessels,” Jeri had said to her. “They hold whatever’s poured into them”.” “Time is never of the essence until someone decides that it is.” “an infant is unaware of its own consciousness until it understands enough about the world to know that consciousness comes and goes, until it comes no more.” Perhaps the author here means consciousness as in life and death, or as in attention to the self. “building a sandbox around a domineering child, then allowing that child to preside over it, frees the adults to do the real work.” “theater is the hallmark of ritual, and ritual is the touchstone of religion”. I noticed it in the regalia of Catholicism and the performances of Pentecostalism. Some aspects of it are genuine, but it feels sometimes that the person on stage is performing. “Incrimination in a world without crime or nations.” This joke by Baba, made me rememeber that crime is primarily based on the nation. “It’s not enough for you to know—you’ve got find it—so you can show others how to find it, too.” It’s one thing to know the answer, its a better thing to know how to figure out the answer. I enjoy experiencing the second. “Nothing in history was a firsthand account, and things known really meant things that were allowed to be known” Good Lines: “Goddard was brilliant at finding shapes in the clouds of his fury.” “More whim than wisdom. " “We couldn’t count our chickens before they were hatched.” “Or put our eggs in one basket,” added Baba. “I wonder which expression came first, the chickens or the eggs.”😂 “Dress quickly—we must leave in extreme haste,” he said. “I’ll be hasty in the morning,” she told him. 😂 “We are scythes, we are harm’s way.” “…preferred not to have an audience for their audiences.” “A voice that resounded even when it whispered.” Cool possibility.