We’re not God’s children, 

we’re not fairy-tale people in a book about true love. 

We live by night and dance fast so the grass can’t grow under our feet.

“Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.” 

                                                  

                                               ― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

PHAENOMENA 

From Zeus let us begin; 

him do we mortals never leave unnamed; 

full of Zeus are all the streets and all the market-places of men;

full is the sea and the havens thereof; 

always we all have need of Zeus. 

For we are also his offspring; 

and he in his kindness unto men giveth favourable signs 

and wakeneth the people to work, reminding them of livelihood. 

He tells what time the soil is best for the labour of the ox and for the mattock,

and what time the seasons are favourable both for the planting of trees and for casting all manner of seeds.

For himself it was who set the signs in heaven, and marked out the constellations, 

and for the year devised what stars chiefly should give to men right signs of the seasons,

to the end that all things might grow unfailingly. 

Wherefore him do men ever worship first and last. 

Hail, O Father, mighty marvel, mighty blessing unto men. 

Hail to thee and to the Elder Race! Hail, ye Muses, right kindly, every one! 

But for me, too, in answer to my prayer direct all my lay, even, as is meet, 

to tell the stars.

                                      - Aratus

I'd consider myself a realist, alright? But in philosophical terms I'm what's called a pessimist... I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect of nature separate from itself - we are creatures that should not exist by natural law... We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self, that accretion of sensory experience and feelings, programmed with total assurance that we are each somebody, when in fact everybody's nobody...

                                                                                                                               
                                                                           -Rustin Cohle, True Detective

I'd like to tell you the story of the eyes that changed my world.

-P.V: You know a scientist once asked the Dalai Lama, "What would you do if something scientific disproved your religious beliefs?" And he said, after much thought, "I would look at all the papers. I'd take a look at all the research and really try to understand things. And in the end, if it was clear that the scientific evidence disproved my spiritual beliefs, I would change my beliefs."

-Ian: That's a good answer.

-P.V: Ian... what would you do if something spiritual disproved your scientific beliefs?