Marcus

“In other words, we humans are smart enough to make ourselves sick with thoughts, emotions, and memories—and we Westernized humans live long enough for the consequences to eventually haunt us big-time.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Stress and Your Body

“Then there are humans. We activate the stress-response if being chased by a predator. But, critically, we can activate that same response if we merely think we’re about to be knocked out of balance—we have an anticipatory stress-response. If it is justified, that is a great thing. But if there is no actual physical stressor impending, and we do that regularly, we have entered the realm of anxiety, neurosis, hostility, and paranoia. Zebras do not worry about global warming, but we do. We activate the identical stress-response as do zebras and lions, but we can do so because of chronic psychological stress. And if that occurs often enough, our disease risk increases, because that is not what the stress-response evolved for.”
― Robert M. Sapolsky, Stress and Your Body

“For the past few slivers of human history, those of us living in what has been deemed the free world have been allowed to hold disparate worldviews, but only on the condition that they affirm, directly or indirectly, the survival of the species. They must not be pessimistic, nihilistic, or in any respect skeptical about the livability of human life. Such perspectives might well be valued by outsiders, but insiders, who form the preponderant division of humankind, will not incorporate the outsider’s stark attitudes and unhappy endings into their philosophies, ideologies, national policies, or fraternal bylaws.”
― Thomas Ligotti, The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

“Moments happen or don’t happen, people’s lives are altered and sometimes destroyed by them, and what can one say? What can one do? Apparently nothing.”
― Michel Houellebecq, Anéantir