and then…

by Arthur O. Brooks

Prophets of Despair

"I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities I have visited." - Jorge Luis Borges

"The story so far: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

- Douglas Adams

“Yet none of these things [laws, justice, human rights, money] exists outside the stories that people invent and tell one another. There are no gods in the universe, no nations, no money, no human rights, no laws and no justice outside the common imagination of human beings.”

“Homo sapiens has no natural rights, just as spiders, hyenas and chimpanzees have no natural rights.” - Yuval Noah Harari

"Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." -Macbeth

Imaginations of Hope

“The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.” - Muriel Rukeyser

"But how could you live and have no story to tell?"

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

"I looked you in the eye. "The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature."

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?"

"No, just you. I made this whole universe for you.

With each new life vou grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect."

"Just me? What about everyone else?"

"There is no one else," I said. "In this universe, there's just you and me." - Andy Weir