a thread for mundane ironists

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9581

[b]Eugene Ionesco

In the history of humanity there are no civilizations or cultures which fail to manifest, in one or a thousand ways, this need for an absolute that is called heaven, freedom, a miracle, a lost paradise to be regained, peace, the going beyond History… There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation… Humanity has always had a nostalgia for the freedom that is only beauty, that is only real; life, plenitude, light.[/b]

You explain it this time.

The human comedy does not attract me enough. I am not entirely of this world. I am from elsewhere, and it is worth finding this elsewhere beyond the walls…but where is it?

You tell him this time.

A nose that can see is worth two that sniff.

Theoretically as it were.

We have not the time to take our time.

Of course for him that was then.

I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old.

Especially now I would imagine.

To me the world seems grotesque, absurd, ridiculous, painful.

Just what I need, another optimist.

9582

[b]Doth

I honestly feel bad for the ghosts that haunt me, no one deserves to have to watch that shit all day.[/b]

Mine too. You know, if they actually do exist.

My body isn’t a temple, it’s at best a decaying old cabin with a horrifying backstory.

Jesus, he I thought, what’s that make mine then?!

When I was a kid everyone told me I had an old soul but it was just crippling anxiety.

No getting around that, right?
Well, not counting two months a years in Miners Mills.

A french kiss uses tongue, a goth kiss is when you eat the beating heart of a billionaire.

Next up: a goth fuck.

Many years ago, in a tavern near Hell, men developed the dark practice of having the audacity.

Sure, I’ll meet you there.

As your goth therapist I need you to remember that you don’t live in the hell, hell lives in you.

Thanks. What do I owe you?

9583

[b]Geoffrey Chaucer

And so it is in politics, dear brother
Each for himself alone, there is no other.[/b]

Tell me that’s changed.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

You know, branishing their worlds of words.

Women naturally desire the same six things as I; they want their husbands to be brave, wise, rich, generous with money, obedient to the wife, and lively in bed.

Naturally? Cue, among others, Satyr and Maia.

If were not foolish young, were foolish old.

Though let’s not leave out those foolish middle.

Many small make a great.

Well, maybe back then they did.

Strike while the iron is hot.

Or still cold for that matter.

9584

[b]Jan Mieszkowski

My ontology: Greek
My semiotics: French
My decision to celebrate Hegel’s birthday with an Owl of Minerva latte: distinctly American[/b]

Distinctly idiotic too, he snorted.

Civilization is a thin layer of ice upon a deep ocean of chaos and darkness, Charlie Brown.

Yo, Lucy! Fetch the football!! The deep ocean of chaos and darkness that is the NFL is about to descend down upon us…again!!!

“Humanity’s self-alienation has reached the point where it can experience its own annihilation as a supreme aesthetic pleasure.” Walter Benjamin

Fucking capitalists, right Zoots?

[b]What you think will help you write:

  1. Coffee
  2. A walk
  3. A nap
  4. More coffee
  5. Another walk
  6. Another nap

What actually helps you write:

  1. Writing[/b]

You know, what we call “posting” here.

English lit: My mind is a labyrinth
French lit: My soul is a phantom
German lit: My heart is a furnace
Russian lit: I think I’m going to lie down on these train tracks

American lit: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

French philosophy: I doubt therefore I am
German philosophy: I negate therefore I am
American philosophy: I market the trappings of existence for personal gain

Next up: Afghanistan philosophy.

9585

[b]Peter Watts

Property damage is so much easier to live with than murder.[/b]

Not if it’s our property and we pulled the trigger.

You had hoped that smarter creatures would be wiser ones.

Me, I’ll settle for them not being assholes.

While a number of people have pointed out the various costs and drawbacks of sentience, few if any have taken the next step and wondered out loud if the whole damn thing isn’t more trouble than it’s worth. Of course it is, people assume; otherwise natural selection would have weeded it out long ago. And they’re probably right. I hope they are. “Blindsight” is a thought experiment, a game of “Just suppose” and “What if”. Nothing more.

Still, some being considerably blinder than others.

What is Human history, if not an ongoing succession of greater technologies grinding lesser ones beneath their boots?

The 8-track tape syndrome!

After four thousand years we can’t even prove that reality exists beyond the mind of the first-person dreamer.

Actually, four thousand years plus.

You can’t kill the thing under the bed. You can only keep it outside the covers.

So, I’ll show you my thing if you’ll show me your thing.

9586

[b]God

No, we wouldn’t want to inject ourselves with dangerous substances, would we, Mr. Clapton.[/b]

Start here: rollingstone.com/music/musi … a-1170264/

Parallel lines never meet, which is a shame because they have so much in common.

Especially your “morally intact” parallel lines, right? :wink:

I’m going to turn the universe off and then back on again and see if that works.

Nope, nothing that I detected.

If you regularly hear Me talk to you, you’re mentally ill.
If I regularly hear you talk to Me, you’re also mentally ill.

Just out of curiosity, is it the same if it’s the Buddha?

Sometimes in life all you need is the instantaneous demise of a major political party.

It starts with an R, right?

Imagine if you had a terrible boss who had a son, and as long as you kept telling the son how great he was, your boss let you treat everyone else in the office like shit.

I think I get this. Still, a little help please.

9587

[b]Minor White

One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.[/b]

Or [here] post things.
You know, like me. :wink:

All photographs are self-portraits.

Especially if you snapped them.

When you approach something to photograph it, first be still with yourself until the object of your attention affirms your presence. Then don’t leave until you have captured its essence.

Got that? Okay, explain it to me.

Photography is a language more universal than words.

Well that’s certainly absurd.

I’m always mentally photographing everything as practice.

Define everythng?

At first glance a photograph can inform us. At second glance it can reach us.

You tell me: google.com/search?source=un … 66&bih=625

9588

[b]God

It’s easy to blame other people, especially because it’s their fault.[/b]

True, that’s always worked for me.

Look at all these morons in church worshipping Me.

The Old Testament God, right?

The 22nd century would have been awesome.

Hint, hint.

Everything’s bigger in Texas! Especially the karma!

Hint, hint.

You’re living in a simulation on a computer that’s overheating.

In what may or may not be the Matrix.

You are here on Earth for one reason and one reason only, and I’m still figuring out what it is.

So much for omniscience then.

9589

[b]Diogenes

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.[/b]

Imagine him saying that today.

If I lack awareness, then why should I care what happens to me when I am dead?

Yes, this still actually works for some. I’m just not one of them. Yet anyway.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

Seamen?
But point taken.

I am looking for an honest man.

I forget, did he ever find one?

To the question what wine he found pleasant to drink, he replied, “That for which other people pay.”

Diogenes, the cheapskate dog.

The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

I know: we’re doomed.

9590

[b]God

Shit’s fucked up, man.[/b]

Or, as Mr. Reasonable might put it, “shit’s weird, bruh”.

I am not on the side of the Taliban.
I am not on the side of anyone who believes I’m on their side.

Maybe, but you’re still the God they worship, adore and slaughter the infidels in the name of.

On 9/11/01, the Taliban ruled Afghanistan.
On 9/11/21, the Taliban will rule Afghanistan.

Hey, it’s not “what goes around comes around” for nothing. They’re just better at it than we are there.

Haiti alone proves I don’t exist.

On the other hand, Ida was no Katrina.

I blame Myself for playing with clay.

You know, like kids do.

You can deny vaccines work.
You can deny masks work.
You can deny Trump lost.
You can deny climate change.
You can go fuck yourself.

Fortunately, there’s no one like that here.
Right?

9591

[b]Natalie Clifford Barney

With renunciation life begins.[/b]

Though it’s just a start on the way to actual revenge.
On the other hand…

Renouncement: the heroism of mediocrity.

In other words, you’ve got to actually act on it.

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.

Indeed, and you should see mine.

Paris has always seemed to me to be the only city in which one can live as one sees fit.

My guess: no one ever said that of Balimore. Especially Randy Newman.

It’s necessary to use suffering. Otherwise, one is used by it.

So, how do you use it?

One is not oneself every day…fortunately.

Of course some of us actually can’t be.

9592

[b]God

There has never been a better time to have no proof of something.[/b]

Anytime, for example.

Don’t forget, people who’ve gotten the vaccine can still be assholes.

Let’s explain that.

Nearly all anti-vaxxers are pro-life, which is really something.

Actually, it doesn’t surprise me in the least.

2,000 years ago, Jesus died for your sins. Now it’s Earth’s turn.

You know, eventually.

I made you in My image and I’m an asshole.

He means Asshole of course.

The Big Bang was a superspreader event.

Any vaccine yet for that?

9593

[b]John Green

Alaska finished her cigarette and flicked it into the river.
‘Why do you smoke so damn fast?’ I asked.
She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, ‘Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die’.[/b]

So, what do you say to that?

In the best conversations, you don’t even remember what you talked about, only how it felt. It felt like we were in some place your body can’t visit, some place with no ceiling and no walls and no floor and no instruments.

Yo, Supannika!
[size=50]The first one, anyway[/size]

Maybe ‘Okay’ will be our ‘always’…

Or maybe ‘maybe’ will.

I fear oblivion. I fear it like the proverbial blind man who’s afraid of the dark.

I fear it another way myself.

You can’t ever know someone else’s hurt, not really—just like touching someone else’s body isn’t the same as having someone else’s body.

For some, practically a scientific fact.

I enjoy looking at beautiful people, and I decided a while ago not to deny myself the simpler pleasures of existence.

Any beautiful people here to simply look at?

9594

[b]tiny nietzsche

your boyfriend thinks dusty springfield played for the cowboys[/b]

She wasn’t even a cheerleader.

tell me you know nothing about nothing without telling me you know nothing about nothing

Now that would be something, right?

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for years

And at the speed of light no less.

back on my late stage capitalism shit

Shit is right.

if I didn’t exist, I wouldn’t invent me

Me? I’d conjure myself now and then.

you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t convince it to get vaccinated

Same with most cows and camels.

9595

[b]Greta Garbo

The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secret elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won’t bother me.[/b]

And you don’t have to be a “star” to appreciate that.

Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.

Or a cynicism.

All alike, you men. You only want the satisfaction of being through with us first, that’s all. So far I’ve had the good fortune of beating you to it. So I am heartless.

Well, she was Greta Garbo, right?

There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.

Murphy’s Law being one of them.

Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological process—or, shall we say, chemical-process…a lot of nonsense is talked and written about it.

Next up: what hate is.

I was always sad as a child, for as long as I can think back. I hated crowds of people, and used to sit in a corner by myself, just thinking.

About what, he wondered.

9596

[b]tiny nietzsche

doktor: what is this obsession with the abyss?
me: well, I’ve been doing a lot of my own research[/b]

Yep, that’ll do it.

socrates recommending hemlock as a “cure-all”

Hey, dead is dead, right?

go fuck myself

Or, for Satyr and his own obsequious clique/claque, thyself.

there’s always hope, but I doubt it

I’ll bet I doubt it more.

five out of five existentialists agree it is right now

Of course now it’s a new right now, isn’t it?

call me when you reach the point of no concern

Me? About 15 years ago.
If you know what I means and you don’t.

9597

[b]Tallulah Bankhead

I think the Republican party should be placed in drydock and have the barnacles scraped off its bottom.[/b]

Imagine then her reaction to the bumpkins in Trumpworld.

Too many of our countrymen rejoice in stupidity, look upon ignorance as a badge of honor. They condemn everything they don’t understand.

Imagine then her reaction to the bumpkins in Trumpworld.

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Or even sooner than that.

My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.

That’s what mothers are for.

Fill what is empty, empty what is full, and scratch where it itches.

And, when necessary, discreetly.

They aren’t making mirrors like they use to.

Not only that but you can’t take them with you to the grave.

9598

[b]tiny nietzsche

you can’t trust the future[/b]

He [among others] wondered why.

Never Get In a Land War In Asia, Charlie Brown

Well, unless war is your business.

I have a joke about socrates. plato wrote it

On the other hand: jokojokes.com/socrates-jokes.html

we should get together sometime and ignore each other

Or, sure, just do it here.

serotonin, serotonout

Repeat as necessary.

I told the ocean about you

Worse, the Pacific ocean.

9599

[b]Jordan Ellenberg

Yes, the existence of human life is evidence for the existence of God; but it’s much better evidence that our world was programmed by people much smarter than us.[/b]

Pick a planet? Or maybe even a moon?

Nobody ever looks in the mirror and says, “Let’s face it, I’m smarter than Gauss.” And yet, in the last hundred years, the joined effort of all these dummies-compared-to-Gauss has produced the greatest flowering of mathematical knowledge the world has ever seen.

He means James S. Saint of course.

Mathematicians can be persnickety about logical niceties. We’re the kind of people who think it’s funny, when asked, “Do you want soup or salad with that?” to reply, "Yes.”

Next up: persnickety about moral niceties.

It’s not wrong to say Hilbert was a genius. But it’s more right to say that what Hilbert accomplished was genius. Genius is a thing that happens, not a kind of person.

He filed this one under “blah, blah, blah.”

We become like those pious people who, over time, accumulate a sense of their own virtuousness so powerful as to make them believe the bad things they do are virtuous too.

Got a few of them here no doubt.

Knowing mathematics is like wearing a pair of X-ray specs that reveal hidden structures underneath the messy and chaotic surface of the world. Math is a science of not being wrong about things, its techniques and habits hammered out by centuries of hard work and argument. With the tools of mathematics in hand, you can understand the world in a deeper, sounder, and more meaningful way.

You know, in the either/or world.

9600

[b]so sad today

excited to fuck up again[/b]

If only all the way to the bank, Melissa?

“when does the nightmare end?”
“which one?”

Chronologically for example.

laying here in the dark like “okay so what are my main problems”

Or, sure, your main nightmares.

in my head the depression isn’t funny

Some days, not even close.

the sexual tension between me and sleep

Don’t get me started.

I think I only like people when I’m not with them

Is there any other way?