Arquivo de philosophy | Page 109 of 123

Knowledge and Compound Interest

Knowledge compares to compound interest. Of these Einstein said, “the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it, he who doesn’t, pays it“. In both cases, the ascent is linked to time and occurs exponentially, i. e., the greater the distance traveled, the greater the acceleration. Scabrous obstacles, with time, become easily overcome, and the momentary possibilities will never represent the future. There is, of course, the caveat: whether in knowledge or in compound interest, progress is conditioned to reinversion.

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Achieving Bliss

Losing our illusions, accepting death, freeing ourselves from financial shackles, laughing at our ridicule, measuring our mediocrity, resisting desire, accepting frustration, annihilating pride, dedicating time to that which fills us with meaning: this is how we achieve bliss, or rather: how we can lick it, until our tongue is dry…

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The Bureaucrats’ Resistance

I admire the resistance of the bureaucrats. In the world, there are many bureaucrats. Ten, fifteen, thirty years performing exactly the same functions, fulfilling the same processes, satisfied and proud of their own experience. The serious countenance at work, the words filled with security, skill, precision. Experts in reports, forms, formal requisitions. Masters in procedures, specifications, certificates, regulations, minutes… I admire the resistance of bureaucrats, for I cannot imagine myself in such a universe but in despair, extreme frustration, eager for death. Filling out forms for thirty years? Please, please, give me the same hemlock as Socrates…

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The Fate of the Intellectual

The intellectual must be unpredictable, or he will not be worthy of the epithet. If the reader, in contact with the title of a work or a chronicle, can predict its content, then the author will be dead, plunged into disinterest. I say the obvious, is to confront the examples… Single-subject chroniclers remain, novelists with blinkers are majority. And if they achieve, these or those, the desired effects ever, the insistence only exposes their limitations. The intellectual must be dynamic, varied, unpredictable and comprehensive; otherwise, he should stop speaking…

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