It seems to be the people who waste the least time, cramming as much as possible into their lives, who most feel the shortness of life. Those who appreciate the value of each day are not inclined to waste too many. So if you do use your time well, what exactly is life too short for?
ReadChrist’s original question was: “Who is my neighbour?” Today we are less likely to ask that of our potential saviours than we are of the people we might help, directly or through our taxes. Yesterday’s news feeds our fear that our neighbours are more likely than not to be bad eggs: benefit fraudsters, bogus asylum seekers, paedophiles or jihadist terrorists
ReadIf there’s one thing that makes me cynical, it’s optimists. They are just far too cynical about cynicism. If only they could see that cynics can be happy, constructive, even fun to hang out with, they might learn a thing or two.
ReadIs it really impossible to have your cake and eat it too? Only if you want to eat and keep all of it: there’s no contradiction in cutting a slice and keeping most for later. What can look like pedantry is actually a powerful rigour that can remove some contradictions by simply showing that they are no such thing.
ReadWhat surprises me is not that people die or get sick, but that other people continue to be so surprised when it happens. Am I unusual in this because I have devoted so much of my life to philosophy? I suspect the causal arrow is the other way round: I have devoted so much of my life to philosophy because I am unusual in this. After all, it is not as though the basic insight depends on a close reading of the Stoics, Socrates or Schopenhauer.
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