All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY.
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (Discworld, #20; Death, #4)
Terry Pratchett once wrote about the concept of "horizontal wealth". Vertical wealth is where you spend money on rich people stuff - yachts and suchlike. Horizontal wealth is where you spend more money on the things you liked before you got rich: https://chibuikeani.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-price-of-happin...
"But horizontal wealth means not letting your increased income dictate your tastes. You like books and now you have money? Buy more books! Change those catenary bookshelves for good hardwood ones! In my case, build a library extension to your office. And, of course, you buy what will be useful for that most wonderful of pursuits, blind research, which is research without direction for the sheer joy of it."
(Original source is his book A Slip of the Keyboard - this linked blog post quotes that bit.)
I bought a house, lived there for a couple years and then bought a better tractor (Kubota L45) than we had on the farm growing up. Now I can get 10 truckloads of woodchips from ChipDrop and mulch a whole acre of my yard in an afternoon.
You can see Francis bacon's studio in Dublin. They moved it from London to a museum in Dublin. I don't think he would have liked that - he was born in Dublin but I think he lived his life in London and maybe didn't care for Dublin that much.
It's a god damn mess. Shit is piled everywhere. You can see some works in progress. Apparently he bought a lot of art books of other artists. It was a big process to move it:
"she assembled a team of conservators, curators, and archaeologists to carry out the move. The archaeologists made survey and elevation drawings of the small studio, mapping out the spaces and locations of all the objects, while the conservators prepared the works for travel and curators tagged and packed each of the items, including the dust. The walls, doors floor and ceiling were also removed."
All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable."
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
"Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—"
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
"So we can believe the big ones?"
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
"They're not the same at all!"
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
"Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what's the point—"
MY POINT EXACTLY. Terry Pratchett, Hogfather (Discworld, #20; Death, #4)
Terry Pratchett once wrote about the concept of "horizontal wealth". Vertical wealth is where you spend money on rich people stuff - yachts and suchlike. Horizontal wealth is where you spend more money on the things you liked before you got rich: https://chibuikeani.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-price-of-happin...
"But horizontal wealth means not letting your increased income dictate your tastes. You like books and now you have money? Buy more books! Change those catenary bookshelves for good hardwood ones! In my case, build a library extension to your office. And, of course, you buy what will be useful for that most wonderful of pursuits, blind research, which is research without direction for the sheer joy of it."
(Original source is his book A Slip of the Keyboard - this linked blog post quotes that bit.)
I bought a house, lived there for a couple years and then bought a better tractor (Kubota L45) than we had on the farm growing up. Now I can get 10 truckloads of woodchips from ChipDrop and mulch a whole acre of my yard in an afternoon.
This documentary of a French nouveau-millionaire perfectly showcases this mindset: https://youtu.be/jK4wnCLuBtI?is=2Q2QYQyfoCnaObhv (AI powered English subtitles available)
> "I bought 10 Kangoo vans"
> "I used to drink one bottle of [awful] wine a day, now I drink 10"
> "He bought 1500 pairs of the [horrible] shoes he wears everyday"
> "I used to spend a month a year camping, now I can spend 10 months a year camping"
You can see Francis bacon's studio in Dublin. They moved it from London to a museum in Dublin. I don't think he would have liked that - he was born in Dublin but I think he lived his life in London and maybe didn't care for Dublin that much.
It's a god damn mess. Shit is piled everywhere. You can see some works in progress. Apparently he bought a lot of art books of other artists. It was a big process to move it: "she assembled a team of conservators, curators, and archaeologists to carry out the move. The archaeologists made survey and elevation drawings of the small studio, mapping out the spaces and locations of all the objects, while the conservators prepared the works for travel and curators tagged and packed each of the items, including the dust. The walls, doors floor and ceiling were also removed."
https://hughlane.ie/arts_artists/francis-bacons-studio/
TIL he was an avid gamer!
Kinda surprised the website doesn't have clacks[1] overhead.
1. http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com