TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE
🧠 My Thoughts:
Absolutely life-changing. Hit all the sweet spots for me: science, futuristic, sci-fi, human relationships, introspection, meaning of life, immortality, genetics, biology, space travel, time travel, felt like this book was written for someone like me. Like Santa Claus heled JK Rowling and Neil DeGrasse Tyson hostage together throughout autumn to produce this for my Christmas Present.
Would recommend it to everyone with an interest in science and behaviour. It’s so beautiful to see humanity from far away, our culture and beliefs in the present dissected so dispassionately. The ridiculousness of what we feel is important, of what we spend our time on, on how we view the world and of our own significance are just so satisfying.
Definitely a great read for anyone who is already nihilistic. Would come with a cautionary warning about all the incest. I recommended this book in my newsletter without realising how incest-y it would get. Quite funny in retrospect.
I feel like the author started out ok but then snapped. What happened? Were they suppressing this all the time? Did something change? Did they call their GP? I have questions. Also did the authors mum read this book? Like how would that interaction go? Also the main character of the book is way too patient. If I were millennia old I wouldn’t be entertaining stupid questions. I’m already 25 and I don’t have patience for some things.
The science is a bit sus -they kind of pick and choose what to be scientifically accurate about. Like the time travel? Travelling between planets? I don’t think that was too realistic.
🪄 Actionable Takeaways:
The story about the lazy man who designed the perfect life for himself is something I wish I would have been told again and again as a child. It’s so sad I was raised in the complete opposite way. It’s also funny to see how high ranking people are often those who consistently chose the path of least resistance. Find what you want to avoid, which is less pain (working the fields or studying) and go all in in the easiest one. You can’t lose.
Life is too long when one is not enjoying now (while we always think that life is too short)
Human beings should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialisation is for insects.
Humans hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn —when they do, which isn’t often —on their own, the hard way. (given up on trying to change people or teach them things)
Embrace laziness: progress doesn’t come from early risers—progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things
Arrange the hazards in your mind in terms of what must be endured, what could be avoided, and what you should actively seek.
❤️ Favourite quotes:
Oh, I have strong opinions, but a thousand reasoned opinions are never equal to one case of diving in and finding out. Galileo proved that and it may be the only certainty we have.
There is no privacy in any society crowded enough to need ID’s.
Never neglect any available means of maximising one’s chances in a situation controlled by random events.
Always cut the cards . . and smile when you lose.
The astounding thing about a waltzing bear is not how gracefully it waltzes but that it waltzes at all.
Give the future enough thought to be ready for it—but don’t worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever.
Babies and young children live in the present, the ‘now.’ Mature adults tend to live in the future. Only the senile live in the past . . and that was the sign that made me realize that I had lived long enough, when I found I was spending more and more time thinking about the past . . less of it thinking about now—and not at all about the future.
It’s amazing how much “mature wisdom” resembles being too tired.
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow if tomorrow might improve the odds.
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so.
Anything free is worth what you pay for it.
She was relaxed with what she was—“liked herself” as Lazarus thought of it—and liking yourself was the necessary first step toward loving other people. She had no guilt feelings because she never did anything that could make her feel guilty. She was unblinkingly honest with herself, was her own self-judge instead of looking to others, did not lie to herself—but lied to others without hesitation when needed for kindness or to get along with rules she had not made and did not respect.
There is no time, there is no space. What was, is, and ever shall be. You are you, playing chess with yourself, and again you have checkmated yourself. You are the referee. Morals are your agreement with yourself to abide by your own rules. To thine own self be true or you spoil the game.