Tim

“Have you never thought how danger must surround power as shadow does light?”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“There’s a fundamental connection between seeming and being. We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be...
It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story...
No, listen. I’ve got it now. You meet a girl: shy, unassuming. If you tell her she’s beautiful, she’ll think you’re sweet, but she won’t believe you. She knows that beauty lies in your beholding. And sometimes that’s enough. But there’s a better way. You show her she is beautiful. You make mirrors of your eyes, prayers of your hands against her body. It is hard, very hard, but when she truly believes you, the story she tells herself in her own head changes. She transforms. She isn’t seen as beautiful. She is beautiful, seen.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind

“The furies are at home
in the mirror; it is their address.
Even the clearest water,
if deep enough can drown.
Never think to surprise them.
Your face approaching ever
so friendly is the white flag
they ignore. There is no truce

with the furies. A mirror’s temperature
is always at zero. It is ice
in the veins. Its camera
is an X—ray. It is a chalice

held out to you in
silent communion, where gaspingly
you partake of a shifting
identity never your own.”
― R. S. Thomas

“Everyday we wake up and collectively make a world together; but which one of us, left to our own devices, would ever decide they wanted to make a world like this one?”
― David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory