Exhalation

by Ted Chiang

My name is Fuwaad ibn Abbas, and I was born here in Baghdad, City of Peace. My father was a grain merchant, but for much of my life I have worked as a purveyor of fine fabrics, trading in silk from Damascus and linen from Egypt and scarves from Morocco that are embroidered with gold. I was prosperous, but my heart was troubled, and neither the purchase of luxuries nor the giving of alms was able to soothe it. Now I stand before you without a single dirham in my purse, but I am at peace.

For most of history, the proposition that we draw life from air was so obvious that there was no need to assert it. Every day we consume two lungs heavy with air; every day we remove the empty ones from our chest and replace them with full ones.

This is a warning. Please read carefully. By now you’ve probably seen a Predictor; millions of them have been sold by the time you’re reading this. For those who haven’t seen one, it’s a small device, like a remote for opening your car door. Its only features are a button and a big green LED. The light flashes if you press the button. Specifically, the light flashes one second before you press the button.

People used to speculate about a thought that destroys the thinker, some unspeakable Lovecraftian horror, or a Gödel sentence that crashes the human logical system. It turns out that the disabling thought is one that we’ve all encountered: the idea that free will doesn’t exist. It just wasn’t harmful until you believed it.

FROM THE CATALOG ACCOMPANYING THE EXHIBITION LITTLE DEFECTIVE ADULTS—ATTITUDES TOWARD CHILDREN FROM 1700 TO 1950; NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PSYCHOLOGY, AKRON, OHIO

When the public interest is involved, finding out what actually happened is important; justice is an essential part of the social contract, and you can’t have justice until you know the truth.

One proposed solution to the Fermi Paradox is that intelligent species actively try to conceal their presence, to avoid being targeted by hostile invaders. Speaking as a member of a species that has been driven nearly to extinction by humans, I can attest that this is a wise strategy. It makes sense to remain quiet and avoid attracting attention.

Is that petty of me?” “Not at all,” said Dana. “Those are perfectly understandable feelings.”

Counselors shouldn't lie to their client/patients: those feelings my be perfectly understandable, but still petty

“Some people have issues with alcohol, but I’m not going to advise my clients to never take a drink.”