I cannot pretend that I understand very much of the mystery of Eros, but knowing that I do not know keeps me attentive to, and far from the current simplifications of, the phenomena of this aspect of our nature that links the highest and the lowest in us. I believe that the most interesting students are those who have not settled the sexual problem, who are still young, even look young for their age, who think there is much to look forward to and much they must yet grow up to, fresh and naive, excited by the mysteries to which they have not yet been fully initiated. There are some who are men and women at the age of sixteen, who have nothing more to learn about the erotic. They are adult in the sense that they will no longer change very much. They may become competent specialists, but they are flat-souled. The world is for them what it presents itself to the senses to be; it is unadorned by imagination and devoid of ideals. This flat soul is what the sexual wisdom of our time conspires to make universal.

- Allan Bloom, The closing of the American mind

It has been suggested that it was not a meteor that killed off the dinosaurs but ancestral versions of Leishmania (with help from some other parasites)

Sacrifice to Pan,
By Francisco de Goya

When I become a surgeon, I want this and only this to be played in my OR

Looking back at my life, all my curiosities; philosophy, neuroscience, literature, movies, TV shows, and conversations did not interest me in and of themselves; philosophy does not interest me more than the traditional Chinese cuisine does. These interests can only be understood as attempts to answer the questions that've always lingered over in my life, my daily life, when I have dinner or walk a street; the great questions and the silly alike.
For me, these curiosities are journeys and adventures done mentally, not "academic" or "intellectual" duties, and as Allan Bloom said in a totally different context "I'm not a snob".

بالنظر إلى الماضي، فإنّ ما أثارَ فضولي دومًا من فلسفة وعلوم أعصاب وأدب وأفلام ومسلسلات ومحادثات وجلسات لم يكن بسبب أنّ هذه الأشياء بذاتِها أثارت فضولي؛ الفلسفة بِذاتِها لا تهمّني أكثر مما تهمّني وصفات الطبخ الصينية. هذه الإهتمامات يمكن فهمها فقط بصفتها محاولاتٍ للإجابة عن الأسئلة التي طالما شغلت تفكيري وحياتي اليومية، عندما أتناولُ العشاء أو أعبرُ الشارع؛ الأسئلة السخيفة والعظيمة على حدٍّ سواء. بالنسبة لي، هذه الإهتمامات هي أسفارٌ ومغامراتٌ عقلية، وليست واجباتٍ "أكاديمية" أو "ثقافية"، وبكلمات آلان بلوم في سياق مختلفٍ تمامًا، "I'm not a snob".

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Ironically, I just posted about my feelings last night

The self is the modern substitute for the soul

- Allan Bloom

Humans keep repeating the same patterns but with different images

Crow and Spider by: Ohara Koson

ولو ما حبيت غير أول دقيقة ونص