Is it possible that on some level, people want to believe that everything's going to get worse? That it's comforting to think that humanity is bad and every solution will just go wrong? Because that way, you're never responsible. You never have to take on responsibility for anything outside yourself and never have to grow up.

Straton wrote that the most common error we commit is to think that ideas determine reality, when in fact the opposite is true. Ideas follow from material conditions; belief systems are formed to explain and justify the way we live. We did not have kings because we believed in the mandate of heaven; we believed in the mandate of heaven because we lived in monarchies.

Identity has no meaning without society, and society has no meaning without the individual.

perhaps faith is neither choice nor submission
perhaps faith is a demand
for our pain to have meaning
for the stories of the world to rhyme
for a world designed by a loving hand

perhaps I will believe with defiance
in the forgiveness of all sins
in the kingdom of god on earth
and even
the resurrection of the dead

I will believe with clenched fists
and gritted teeth
and prayers that refuse
to be gentle

I've been wondering, what made our ancestors settle in these godforsaken places? It can't have been easy with those frail, squishy bodies of theirs.
What makes a caveman go yes, this frozen hellscape is where I want to live out my days?