A Collection of Quotes Over Half a Century on Death
words can't wrap their arms around death
On Reading
Last night I just finished "A Book Against Death" by Elias Canetti.
The book is structured as a journal of sorts that's captured over 50 years of random collections of thought on the topic of death. Death is really interesting topic, obviously, because while death is an inevitable experience that all people drive toward, it can't really be summed up. It can be seen and it can be talked about, and despite being extremely commonplace it can't really fully be understood. We are deeply afraid of our deaths while living and we can't interview anyone who's already died about what their experience is like post-death.
More importantly, this book is filled to the brim with one-sentence hard-hitting bangers. Below are five that I included, but aren't at all exclusive, for how many amazing one-liners there are in this book:
"He hopes, without God noticing, to live a long time."
"Adam strangles God; Eve looks on."
"He left behind a collection of desks, and on each the first sentence of an immense work."
"“I haven’t seen you for a long time.” “I died.” “How terrible. When did it happen?” “Two months ago.” “But you are all right now?” “Not bad, thank you.”"
"She likes meat so much that, after she dies, she wants to be torn apart by birds of prey."
On ABDTI
Weight: 193.4
The fact that I'm still on this weight plateau is a testament to how conscious desire doesn't trump physics.
I am learning more about my body overall and what it needs vs. what I think it needs. I am also learning the experience of being tired by having a high heart rate while working out or the experience of trying to deprive myself of calories, but then ending up in a pseudo-binge in the evenings.
I call it a pseudo-binge because before I started counting calories, it was a true binge where I would end up super full and bloated after eating a bunch of calories in the evening. But now I can say that I haven't really felt full in a long time, which is a good thing because I think that I was way too full too often.
