{"author":"Ashim Shanker","author_id":"Ashim+Shanker","total_quotes":35,"quotes":[{"text":"All high mathematics serves to do is to beget higher mathematics.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["astrophysics","deus-absconditus","fractals","grand-unification-theory","mathematical-patterns","numerical-patterns","scientific-determinism","string-theory","theoretical-physics","universe"],"id":43643,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"It would be both foolish and cumbersome to continue our everyday existences in bliss without first denying to ourselves, for the sake of excusing our own repugnance, the inherent cruelty from which modern civilization was conceived...And there can be no other path by which a fiercely competitive, yet social species, as humanity, can afford its members the level of safety, prosperity and stability—such that we enjoy now— without its initial pangs of cannibalism, brutality, dominance and cruelty to forge the foundations, very much like the lava which formed the ground upon which we now stand. Lava still erupts from the core. Brutality, Dominance, and Cruelty similarly erupt from ours; and they are no less prevalent now than in early human history.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["brutality","civilization","cruelty","dominance","early-man","human-history","human-nature","lava","species-proliferation"],"id":58897,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"Comfort...Was the key ingredient to making the prisoner crave the prison.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["apathy","comfort-is-a-prison","comfort-zone","craving","liberation","malaise","self-doubt","self-growth","self-imprisonment","spiritual-insights","stagnant","unrealized-potential"],"id":69929,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"Here in Alpha City, we have a common saying: “What we call ‘sky’ is merely a figment of our narrative.” The most dreamy-eyed among us seem to adorn themselves and their aspirations in that proverb and you’ll see it everywhere: in advertisements on the sides of streetcars and auto-rickshaws, spelled out in studs and rhinestones on designer jackets, emblazoned in the intricate designs of facial tattoos—even painted on city walls by putrid vandals and inspiring street artists. There is something glorious about kneading out into the doughy firmament the depth and breadth of one’s own universe, in rendering the contours of a sky whose limits are predicated only upon the bounds of one’s own imagination. The fact of the matter is that we cannot see the natural sky at all here. It is something like a theoretical mathematical expression: like the square-root of ‘negative one’—certainly it could be said to have a purpose for existing, but to cast eyes upon it, in its natural quantity, would be something akin to casting one’s eyes upon the raw elements comprising our everyday sustenance. How many of us have even borne close witness to the minute chemical compounds that react to lend battery power to our portable electronics? The sky is indeed such a concealed fixture now. It is fair to say that we have purged our memories of its true face and so we can only approximate a canvas and project our desires upon it to our heart’s dearest fancy. The most cynical among us would ostensibly declare it an unavoidable tragedy, but perhaps even these hardened individuals could not remember the naked sky well enough to know if what they were missing was something worthwhile. Perhaps, it’s cynical of me to say so! In any case, we have our searchlights pointed upwards and crisscrossing that expanse of heavens as though to make some sensational and profane joke of ourselves to the surrounding universe. We beam already video images of beauty pageants and dancing contests with smiling mannequins who look like buffoons. And so, the face of space cloaks itself behind our light pollution—in this respect, our mirrored sidewalks and lustrous streets do little to help our cause—and that face remains hidden from us in its jeering ridicule, its mocking laughter at this inexorable farce of human existence.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["absurdism","imagination","narrative","projection","self-importance","sky","solipsism","technological-progress"],"id":80900,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"Each form is inadequate, like a graft to be rejected by its intractable and unrelenting host and thus can only serve a brief and momentary purpose coherent to a context rooted in contiguous reason. This unbridled brash Spirit is, to itself, burdensome, yet dynamic, for it sees no flaw in working within the confines of a closed system to achieve ends that extend beyond it. This Spirit is, in fact, self-deceptive for to achieve such ends, it becomes necessary to bound manipulable fragments of the Self with a twine by which these parts can be joined indissolubly and maneuvered adroitly with the skill of a marionettist.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["ephemerality","evanescence","fleeting","form","marionette","multiple-universes","parasitism","past-lives","poetry","puppetry","spirit","transcendentalism"],"id":101553,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"What indeed is the half-life of a mortal consciousness? What is the half-life of a memory of that mortal consciousness? Of course, this is purely an academic question and of no immediate concern to those of us existing in the world of the living, for we possess already a memory, in its stead, which serves as a basis of our perception of the past. Accurate or not, this nature of memory allows us to understand the past according to the positions occupied by the flesh about which we seek to know, but, unfortunately, not in a way relative to the flesh itself—that flesh stripped of identity and circumstance, that flesh which, in its most rudimentary capacity, had once collided, interacted, fought, competed, negotiated, cooperated, and mated with other flesh: there is no history of this kind, thoroughly naked and telling enough, which is accessible to us, for we are composed of the very same substance, the very same flesh, and sadly incapable of stepping outside of it, even momentarily.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["ashim-shanker","consciousness","flesh","half-life","history-of-material-substance","imagined-experience","impermanence","insubstantial","memory-and-imagination","mortality","roles","sublime","substance","tangible-versus-intangible"],"id":115284,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"His hatred for all was so intense that it should extinguish the very love from which it was conceived. And thus, he ceased to feel. There was nothing further in which to believe that made the prospect of feeling worthwhile. Daily he woke up and cast downtrodden eyes upon the sea and he would say to himself with a hint of regret at his hitherto lack of indifference, 'All a dim illusion, was it? Surely it was foolish of me to think any of this had meaning.' He would then spend hours staring at the sky, wondering how best to pass the time if everything—even the sky itself— were for naught. He arrived at the conclusion that there was no best way to pass the time. The only way to deal with the illusion of time was to endure it, knowing full well, all the while, that one was truly enduring nothing at all. Unfortunately for him, this nihilistic resolution to dispassion didn’t suit him very well and he soon became extremely bored. Faced now with the choice between further boredom and further suffering, he impatiently chose the latter, sailing another few weeks along the coast , and then inland, before finally dropping anchor off the shores of the fishing village of Yami.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["absurdist-fiction","ashim-shanker","bitterness","black-humor","boredom","cosmic-irony","disappointment","dispassion","ennui","gallows-humor","hatred","indifference","infinitude","irony-of-life","love","love-and-hate","naught","nihilism","only-the-deplorable","passage-of-time","prolonging-life","suffering"],"id":117686,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"The lights became stars, which became streaks in the grayspace, and then networks of fading shimmers.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["ambiguity","ashim-shanker","divinity","doubt","ephemeral","evanescence","gray","human-existence","impermanence","light","metaphysical","multiplicity","network","ontology","pluralism","poetry","shimmer","singularity","space","streaks"],"id":135436,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"There will be times in which things appear hopeless. You will begin to doubt everything around you. You will even begin to doubt yourself. You will think things will never look up and you may be in the deepest, darkest, loneliest place in the world. Everything which had once been infused with wonder may appear disappointing and harsh. You may grow cynical and come to believe that this is simply the way the world is...That one must bear with the unforgiving realities of the world and only hope that it doesn’t get worse. You might grow suspicious of others, as adults tend to do, and close yourself off from the rest of the world. You might just look to the past and reminisce about better days...Or you might just dwell in one place for a little too long and become nostalgic for the future. Just remember—regardless of where you are, what experiences you have, and who you have become—that there will always be those who have loved you. Those whom you may have taken for granted, but have nonetheless, always had you in their hearts and in their hopes and wishes. Lives that you have touched: whether you realize it or not. To separation you may venture, but indissolubly in union shall you drift...You will always be at the whims of forces, both great and small, and far beyond your capacity to control. That’s how all our stories go. Innumerable arcs intersect and scatter into a vast indefinite sea.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["ashim-shanker","at-the-whims-of-forces","fate","hopeless-wanderer","indefinite-sea","indissolubly","infinitude","innumerable-arcs","nostagia","ocean","self-doubt","separation-and-union"],"id":140091,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"},{"text":"A bracing wind swirls about the boy and alights gently upon his shoulder to gape frightfully at droplets of fate joined infirmly to a sweep of atmospheric and lunar forces far beyond their capabilities to resist. He takes a long, deep breath of air—cleansed through its migration—and he closes his eyes.Scattered waves roll back in to the sea.","author":"Ashim Shanker","tags":["atmospheric","breathe","destiny","don-t-forget-to-breathe","fate","lunar","migration","ocean"],"id":140141,"author_id":"Ashim+Shanker"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":35,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}