Eamonpw

“The iniquity of oblivion blindly scatters her poppyseed and when wretchedness falls upon us one summer's day like snow, all we wish for is to be forgotten.”
― W.G. Sebald, The Rings of Saturn

“Imagine a number of men in chains, all under sentence of death, some of whom are each day butchered in the sight of others those remaining see their own condition in that of their fellows, and looking at each other with grief and despair await their turn. This is an image of the human condition.”
― Blaise Pascal, Pensées

“What does a scanner see? he asked himself. I mean, really see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does a passive infrared scanner like they used to use or a cube-type holo-scanner like they use these days, the latest thing, see into me - into us - clearly or darkly? I hope it does, he thought, see clearly, because I can't any longer these days see into myself. I see only murk. Murk outside; murk inside. I hope, for everyone's sake, the scanners do better. Because, he thought, if the scanner sees only darkly, the way I myself do, then we are cursed, cursed again and like we have been continually, and we'll wind up dead this way, knowing very little and getting that little fragment wrong too.”
― Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly

“And who was I? Not nearly as much of a loner and outsider as I’d always thought. A bit odd, but others were more odd. And who else was I? A member of an expedition, or no, someone who’d been on an expedition all by himself, and after forging his way through all sorts of difficulties had come back here to civilization to freshen up, for the time being, before his next one-man venture. And who else? At first sight a disturbed person, who, when you got to know him, seemed much more normal, indeed the only normal person among a thousand, while the other nine hundred and ninety-nine eventually turned out to be as mad as hatters.

And who else was I? (As if, having seen my double, I suddenly couldn’t find out enough about myself - couldn’t get enough of myself.) Let me be someone else as well, play someone else: a pioneer, a deserter, a soccer referee or at least a linesman.

And what was I like, considering my double there in the restroom’s white neon glare? Not special. Not that bad. Maybe somewhat deficient in that certain something, but not entirely deficient either. Far from being a star, but if an idiot, a village idiot, not a provincial or city idiot. And what else was I like? And in what way? And in what other way? Well, what d’you know! Yes, just look at that! You didn’t expect that, did you? Look, just look! Yes, just look. Look!”
― Peter Handke, Quiet Places: Collected Essays