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“I think it's helpful to know how sunsets work. I don't buy the romantic notion that scientific understanding somehow robs the universe of its beauty, but I still can't find language to describe how breathtakingly beautiful sunsets are--not breathtakingly, actually, but breath-givingly beautiful. All I can say is that sometimes when the world is between day and night, I'm stopped cold by its splendor, and I feel my absurd smallness. You'd think that would be sad, but it isn't. It only makes me grateful.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
“All these miniscule interactions—a friendly wave, a pencil sketch, some plastic beads strung up a nylon cord—they might not look like much from the outside, but for the people caught inside that web? They might be everything, the very tethers that keep one bound to this planet.”
― Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
― Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life
“It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world.
I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass.
But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.
And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass.
But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.
And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
Aster’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Aster’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
438 books
|
24 friends
452 books
|
16 friends
214 books
|
8 friends
121 books
|
5 friends
227 books
|
8 friends
189 books
|
9 friends
485 books
|
5 friends
322 books
|
1 friend
More friends…
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Lists liked by Aster
