As a survival-happy species, our successes are calculated in the number of years we have extended our lives, … - Thomas Ligotti

Same topic Authors

Quote of the day

I was born in Sweden, and in Sweden we are known for the piracy services.

Thomas Ligotti

As a survival-happy species, our successes are calculated in the number of years we have extended our lives, with the reduction of suffering being only incidental to this aim. To stay alive under almost any circumstances is a sickness with us. Nothing could be more unhealthy than to “watch one’s health” as a means of stalling death. The lengths we will go as procrastinators of that last gasp only demonstrate a morbid dread of that event. By contrast, our fear of suffering is deficient.

Extended, Mean, Numbers, Ones, Suffering, Years

Same Author Quotes

Personally, I'm afraid of suffering and afraid of dying. I'm also afraid of witnessing the suffering and death of those who are close to me. And no doubt I project these fears on those around me and those to come, which makes it impossible for me to understand why everyone isn't an antinatalist, just as I have to assume pronatalists can't understand why everyone isn't like them.

Assume, Doubt, Dying, Suffering And Death, Witnessing

The company that employed me strived only to serve up the cheapest fare that the customer would tolerate, churn it out as fast as possible, and charge as much as they could get away with. If it were possible to do so, the company would sell what all businesses of its kind dream about selling, creating that which all of our efforts were tacitly supposed to achieve: the ultimate product -- Nothing. And for this product they would command the ultimate price -- Everything.

Achieve, Creating, Dream, Effort, Fare, Sell

What we do, as a conscious species, is set markers for ourselves. Once we reach one marker, we advance to the next.

Advance, Consciousness, Markers, Next, Set, Species

But even if ego-death is regarded as the optimum model for human existence, one of liberation from ourselves, it still remains a compromise with being, a concession to the blunder of creation itself. We should be able to do better, and we can. To have our egos killed off is second-best to killing off death and all the squalid byplay that flitters around it. So let all lands be small, and grower smaller and smaller until no lands are left where any human footstep need press itself upon the earth.

Able, Byplay, Ego, Land, Left, Model

Amnesia may well be the highest sacrament in the great gray ritual of existence.

Amnesia, Existence, Gray, May, Sacrament