The human capacity to get rid of the powerful impression caused by death is impressive. When experienced, it seems decisive, there seems to be a certainty that its vividness will never leave the memory. But then time passes, and the day comes when it is as if it had never happened, and one lives peacefully, ignoring what once seemed like a lesson. Forgetting is a gift; but only partially: remembering, sometimes, is ensuring that the past has not been in vain.
Category: Notes
It Is Truly Wonderful to Read Szondi’s…
It is truly wonderful to read Szondi’s observations when one’s knowledge of one’s own ancestors is limited to two generations! There seems to be no more effective way to portray disorientation. In Szondi, ancestors always seem to be lurking, seeking ways to manifest their inner tendencies in the lives of their descendants; knowing them, therefore, is essential. And to see that, as a rule, the offspring of anti-civilization know nothing about them; they live as if they had been thrown onto the earth from above by a stork; and they spend their lives like this…
Sometimes, Even a Notorious Con Artist…
Sometimes, even a notorious con artist, even a fifth-rate ideologue, liar and malicious, can produce very interesting pages when describing his personal experiences. Unless he falsifies them too, he will be able to experience in writing exactly what the great writer experiences. And he will be convincing. There is something special about this: writing offers everyone, without distinction, identical possibilities—and to make the most of them, one need only take the act of writing seriously.
Financial Mathematics Has Something…
Financial mathematics has something cruel about it. When studying it, it is not difficult to see that it works, that is, that the long term really does confirm the theory of multiplication. Although recent, it already has sufficient historical data to estimate with some certainty the results of different scenarios, including those that are unforeseen. Risk, too, can now be quantified in fairly reliable figures. But all of these calculations, all of these estimates, all of this sufficiently safe way of operating, with more than satisfactory results, is always based on percentages. No matter how sophisticated the calculation or how powerful the computer, it is impossible to escape this constraint: a percentage is always relative to the principal.