"not as inevitable as we think it is"

"This is Minimalism's most powerful and frightening insight. It has nothing to do with the aesthetic cues associated with lowercase-m minimalism, the consumer products, interior decoration, the curated items of clothing. Minimalism doesn't need to look good. It tries to make us understand that the sense of artistic beauty humanity has built up over millennia -- the varieties of colors, stories recounted, and bodies represented -- is also an artificial creation, not as inevitable as we think it is.

Minimalism requires a new definition of beauty, one that centers on the fundamental miracle of our moment-to-moment encounter with reality, our sense of being itself. Any attempt at elegance is extraneous. [Donald] Judd left another note in his diary that winter: 'A definition of art finally occurred to me. Art is everything at once.'"

-- Kyle Chayka, The Longing for Less -- Living with Minimalism

"endure it all the way"

"'It exists," Shevek said, spreading out his hands.  'It's real.  I can call it a misunderstanding, but I can't pretend that it doesn't exist, or will ever cease to exist.  Suffering is the condition on which we live.  And when it comes, you know it.  You know it as the truth.  Of course it's right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger and injustice, as the social organism does.  But no society can change the nature of existence.  We can't prevent suffering.  This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain.  A society can only relieve social suffering, unnecessary suffering.  The rest remains.  The root, the reality.  All of us here are going to know grief; if we live fifty years, we'll have known pain for fifty years.  And in the end we'll die.  That's the condition we're born on.  I'm afraid of life!  There are times I -- I am very frightened.  Any happiness seems trivial.  And yet, I wonder if it isn't all a misunderstanding -- this grasping after happiness, this fear of pain. . . .  If instead of fearing it and running from it, one could. . . get through it, go beyond it.  There is something beyond it.  It's the self that suffers, and there's a place where the self -- ceases.  I don't know how to say it.  But I believe that the reality -- the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don't in comfort and happiness -- that the reality of pain is not pain.  If you can get through it.  If you can endure it all the way.'"

-- Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

"beauty is the ache of mortality"

"'Gods fly through space in bubbles of glass, and their powers exceed ours as ours exceed those of the stones we stand on, who know only to endure.  And once long ago gods voyaged through this forgotten bay of the night sea, and to pass the time they argued a point of philosophy.'  And here the speaker's voice grew harsh, the edge of every word sharper until they were as edged as the taste of Garth's shoulder fruit, sending the same kind of bitter shock through Thel.  'They argued aesthetics, the most metaphysical of philosophical problems.  One of them said that beauty was a quality of the universe independent of any other, that it  was inlaid in the fabric of being like gravity, in a pattern that no one could pull out.  Another disagreed: beauty is the ache of mortality, this god said, an attribute of consciousness, and nothing is beautiful except perceived through the love of lost time, so that wherever there is beauty, love was there also, and first.'"

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, A Short, Sharp Shock

"do only what is allowable"

"33. Set up right now a certain character and pattern for yourself which you will preserve when you are by yourself and when you are with people.  Be silent for the most part, or say what you have to in a few words.  Speak rarely, when the occasion requires speaking, but not about just any topic that comes up, not about gladiators, horse-races, athletes, eating or drinking -- the things that always come up; and especially if it is about people, talk without blaming or praising or comparing.  Divert by your own talk, if you can, the talk of those with you to something appropriate.  If you happen to be stranded among strangers, do not talk.  Do not laugh a great deal or at a great many things or unrestrainedly.  Refuse to swear oaths, altogether if possible, or otherwise as circumstances allow.  Avoid banquets given by those outside philosophy.  But if the appropriate occasion arises, take great care not to slide into their ways, since certainly if a person's companion is dirty the person who spends time with him, even if he happens to be clean, is bound to become dirty too.  Take what has to do with the body to the point of bare need, such as food, drink, clothing, house, household slaves, and cut out everything that is for reputation or luxury.  As for sex stay pure as far as possible before marriage, and if you have it do only what is allowable.  But do not be angry or censorious toward those who do engage in it, and do not always be making an exhibition of the fact that you do not."

-- Epictetus, The Handbook

"natural puppets with nothing in their heads"

"Simply put: We are not from here.  If we vanished tomorrow, no organism on this planet would miss us.  Nothing in nature needs us.  We are like [Philipp] Mainlander's suicidal God.  Nothing needed Him either, and his uselessness was transferred to us after He burst out of existence.  We have no business being in this world.  We move among living things, all those natural puppets with nothing in their heads.  But our heads are in another place, a world apart where all the puppets exist not in the midst of life but outside it.  We are those puppets, those human puppets.  We are crazed mimics of the natural prowling about for a peace that will never be ours.  And the medium in which we circulate is that of the supernatural, a dusky element of horror that obtains for those who believe in what should be and should not be.  This is our secret quarter.  This is where we rave with insanity on the level of metaphysics, fracturing reality and breaking the laws of life."

-- Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against The Human Race

"to reward honor and courage, and to penalize players for casual depravity"

Allow me to simultaneously age myself and pull out my nerd credentials by heartily recommending this article about the early video game Ultima IV, which turns 35 this year:

"It was the fan mail that set Garriott on a path toward reimagining what a computer role-playing game (C.R.P.G.) could do. In these letters, people described how they played the first three Ultimas, which were open-world games that did not require a linear path to complete, giving players the freedom to steal from shops or kill townsfolk. The letter writers explained, according to Garriott, that 'the easiest way to gain power was not to play as a good guy.' He was despondent. 'I inadvertently made games that drove the players to act dishonorably, as this was the path of least resistance.' What if, he wondered, there were a game in which your moral choices had consequences? He wanted the next installment of Ultima to reward honor and courage, and to penalize players for casual depravity. Garriott’s family and colleagues warned him that players might feel as if they were being punished for having admitted to enjoying robbing and murdering, but Garriott ignored them. 'This was the art I was compelled to make,' he said.

Where would these moral ideas come from? Garriott studied Christian theology, Greek philosophy, and Arthurian codes of conduct, but none felt applicable enough for all people. He was attracted to Buddhist and Hindu thought, but these traditions didn’t seem to offer a framework for a game. The plan for Ultima IV coalesced for Garriott after repeatedly watching his favorite movie, 'The Wizard of Oz.' Garriott had been ruminating on the essential ideals of truth, love, and courage and realized that the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion, respectively, embodied these concepts. With these three ideals, Garriott created a schema of relational virtues through which a player would develop a hero."

First off, Ultima IV is the first game I remember where you could "talk" to anyone and everyone.  Sure, a lot of the people in the game had little to say beyond "Hello" but no small number of them actually played key roles in your adventure.  You had to interact with them in ways beyond combat or stealing if you wanted to progress within the narrative frame.

Even as an 11 year-old I realized something special was happening here.

Second, I had a friend in high school who wrote an English class paper on the game.  (Or maybe it was the sequel, Ultima V, which covered similar ground?  Or both?)  The English teacher wasn't too thrilled but then again, video games were not taken seriously by anybody back then.  Pac-Man and Space Invaders were what people thought of when you mentioned gaming, not narrative driven quests for spiritual purity and enlightenment.

Third, my mom didn't let me play alone in my room.  We set up "the computer table" near her own work-space.  (At the time she had a typewriter, but not long after she had her own IBM.)  I spent hours there laboring over a Commodore 64, constantly jotting down clues and hints and notes and map locations on a legal yellow pad.  I'd ask my mom for help with turgid Tolkienisms, or run over to the phone to call a friend who was also working on finishing the game and who might have figured out one of its many daunting secrets before I had.

As something resembling "maturity" set in during high school she let it slip that she'd set things up like that on purpose.  She got a kick out of watching me play that damn game, and if it taught me that there's more to life than murdering bad guys and taking their stuff that's secondary to the rest, to her covert tutelage and tacit support of my love for strange adventures.

Heck Is (Maybe) Other People, Definitely Children

Speaking of foreigner co-worker, we had a bit of a philosophical debate as to the best quarantine scenario -- alone or with a partner?

He's newly married, and seemingly very happy, and he waxed rhapsodic about how happy they were in their love nest together.  (No, I didn't ask about the sex.  I'll remind you I'm a classy boy.)

I'm weird and single and found myself, all things considered, pretty damn happy for the month of March doing what I normally do -- reading, watching movies, taking walks.  If it isn't clear by now, I was leaving my apartment daily but not doing my usual stuff like movie-theater movies or sporting events or hanging out in cafes downtown or museums.

And of course, what about kids?  I know my sister is happily ensconced with my nephew, who is truly mature and thoughtful for his age.  They also live in an nice big house.  But I shudder to think what it would be like in a small apartment with multiple rug rats.

Obviously, types are drawn to types.  But I vote for alone.  Even with a loving partner, you're one argument or stomach flu away from disaster.