The Exact Colour of the Sky (2017)
Human life is a miraculous and quite amazing phenomenon in nature. Therefore, its transience, its limitations, and its apparent meaninglessness are paradoxical.
The further scientists progress, the more they lose interest in everything that is already known. Only the unknown remains interesting and pure, as the only safe haven untainted by dishonorable human action.
To achieve any results a person will need persistence and patience. However, humans were not created to be persistent and patient. For this, they need unwavering faith - in their own abilities, as well as in the value of the goals they have set for themselves and the correctness of the decisions they have made to achieve them.
When you see a lot of the world, it becomes increasingly clear how every part of the Earth's surface is inhabited by some other people, in their time, with their own capabilities, relationships, ambitions and ideas, and how every positive impact of individuals on the immediate environment and local community is useful, as it ultimately helps all of humanity progress.
One of the most important moments in everyone’s life comes when we stop thinking about what others think of us and start thinking about what we think of them.
As people age, they begin to feel an increasing need to return to their roots, the place on Earth where their personal story began, among so many billions of other people's stories, and where they created the first memories, knowledge and experiences that defined them as unique persons.
When people are unsure what to choose, they do not need to choose anything. Time will be the most powerful ally to those who have the gift of patience and who are able to wait until the choice reveals itself.
In history, people waged wars for supremacy over trade routes. In more recent history, they waged wars for oil. In the future, they will probably wage wars for water, food, and perhaps even clean air.
Like entrepreneurs, actors, or gold diggers, scientists need to accept that a career in science is extremely precarious and uncertain. It also includes a fairly large component of luck and does not depend only on the abilities of an individual scientist.
The books I fed on with the hope of a better understanding of the world, but also of the people around me and their ideas and intentions, only managed to conjure up the instability of everything we call human knowledge, the vastness of what remains unknown to us, and the frightening limitations of the human mind and senses to understand the world in which we find ourselves.
In their older age, scientists can no longer easily compete with their 20-year-younger counterparts. The only thing that still keeps them competitive is their acquired experience, allowing them a better judgement of what it makes sense to invest time in and what it does not.
All processes that we observe in nature tend to be self-limiting in some way, from epidemics and fires to stock market crashes.
Evil Air (2018)
For every ambition in one of the dimensions of human life, a person will have to pay a price in other dimensions. That is why human life is often imbued with the impression of suboptimality.
Current human knowledge is the set of all the probabilities that we attach to all the hypotheses we have developed, based on the best information we have at the moment.
The headlines in the media of various countries are a reflection of what the population is really interested in. Therefore, they are an indicator of the direction of society. If they are dominated by polemics about past events and about abstract, unresolved issues that divide people, society declines. If they deal with issues of the future, society thrives.
You will hear many people talk about justice, about fairness. But when it comes to surviving on Earth, there is neither justice nor fairness. Simply, some species survive and others do not.
Whatever situation one finds oneself in, anywhere in the world, from the slums of Africa to the Royal Palace in Europe, it is always good to be modest, to be considerate of other people and to speak as little as possible.
History may well be a teacher of life, but what good is it if no one comes to her classes.
To last in science is the same as to last in a top sport. But in top sport you may be at the top for ten years, and in science you have to stay your entire working life.
Research on how to significantly extend human lifespan is perhaps the most rational thing any of us can do at all.
Our mass, our atoms - are convertible into energy, and they probably originated from energy. This points to the conclusion that we ourselves are an energy in the universe, which temporarily materialized into atoms and molecules and then organized in an incredible way to take human form. Why such an amazing sequence of events ever happens and, given its complexity, why does it last so short - that’s a difficult question.
We are the first species, out of many millions of species on Earth, to have developed the ability to change our own genetic code. In doing so, we have no previous experience to refer to. History might remember a possible acceleration of human evolution as our greatest success, but perhaps also as the greatest mistake that we have made.
Human childbirth is a truly awkward evolutionary solution. It is stressful, painful, strenuous and life threatening. Why hasn't science worked out ways to make it much easier? Unfortunately, it may be because it only affects women.
Humanity is in the race between its growing ability to survive in a variety of conditions and the increasing number of factors that work together to limit its survival.
In the post-truth era, any verified, grounded, scientifically validated and published information will quickly get its exciting and seductive misinformation on the internet.
Reading books that were written five hundred, fifty or only five years ago, it becomes apparent that human knowledge is an evolving concept that is constantly being upgraded, rebuilt and changed.
Personal knowledge is like a circle in which every human stands. The unknown is the circumference of that circle. This is why a person with very large knowledge also has the large awareness of the unknown. Such people feel very small inside their circles, while those who don't know much feel big inside theirs
In science, the beauty and elegance of the solutions can occasionally be helpful signposts that we are on the right path. However, I don’t see why, from an evolutionary point of view, we would develop that sense of beauty and elegance? Throughout our entire history, we have only had to fight with other species and eat them, while being careful that someone else does not eat us. There is neither beauty nor elegance in that.
Every human being is a unique experiment in space and time.
In the Land of Clans (2019)
One can fall in love with cities just as one can fall in love with other people.
One drop of water poured into the sea does not make a significant difference, but one match lit up in the dark makes a significant difference.
Everyone deserves a second chance, but no one deserves a third chance.
In large, unfamiliar cities it is not pleasant to be all alone, but the company of just one person makes all the difference.
There is no need to hurry in life, because there is nowhere to get, except to the cemetery. And the more you hurry, the sooner you may get there.
The surest path to personal success is not to work for your own personal benefit, but for the benefit of as many other people as possible.
If you want to succeed like no one has succeeded before, you must have the courage to live like no one has lived before.
Healthy societies treat disturbed individuals, while sick societies follow disturbed individuals.
The bigger the idea, the lesser the competition.
Humanity is currently behaving on Earth like a rock band in a hotel suite, only the cleaning lady won’t come in the morning.
I’ve learned how bad it is not to be able to fall in love with the seemingly perfect person, but it’s even worse that you can’t fall out of love with the clearly wrong person.
The most common reason why some people have gained what many others have not is that they dared.
There are things that cannot be learned - like passion, enthusiasm and authenticity.
As people age, they tend to learn that psychological pain is quite overestimated compared to physical pain.
The fight against human irrationality and ignorance is a difficult and exhausting struggle with a completely uncertain outcome.
It is better to put any plan into action a year too late than one second too soon.
It is better to love yourself even when everyone else hates you, than to hate yourself even when everyone else loves you.
Knowledge is not easily transferable to power; acquiring great power does not necessarily require great knowledge.
After about forty years on Earth, many people find it difficult to bear themselves, let alone anyone else.
It is not possible to even trust yourself, let alone anyone else .
Awaiting Fires (2020)
If anyone begins to succeed in every one of their plans, it means that they no longer learn anything new. They almost certainly stagnate and likely even regress.
In the 21st century, changes are so fast that no one can say for what kind of occupations we need to educate children today. That’s why formal education may not remain as important as it has used to be
Whatever we unable to comprehend, we will continue to refer to as ‘paranormal’ until we develop methods by which we can better understand it. The progress of science depends on the ability to measure and then study everything around us and within us. There are certainly phenomena in nature that remain beyond the reach of today’s science.
If other people understand your every decision and can accompany you to the end in all your thoughts, it means that their understanding of the world must be broader and deeper. If they don’t understand you anymore, then you may have pushed some boundary. Maybe you’ve seen something they don’t see yet, realized something they don’t understand yet. Maybe you're becoming a pioneer.
The Achilles heel of reasonable and learned people is that they tend to underestimate the amount of damage that only one unreasonable person can do.
Females must, among other things, maintain the genetic diversity of bisexual species. Therefore, their early instinct is to somehow preserve the genes of those males whose premature death without offspring is most likely. This may explain why motorcyclists, street gang leaders, revolutionaries, outlaws of all sorts, or opiate-prone drummers are attractive to teenage girls.
I think of public popularity as of air that has warmed up a bit in the bathroom using a hair dryer. But as soon as the dryer is turned off, the air cools down. That is why striving for public popularity is one of the most meaningless pursuits possible. It is better that people are interested in your work, rather than in yourself personally, otherwise disappointment may soon follow.
It is safer to look for happiness in oneself than in expectations from external events or other people. The accumulated knowledge, experiences and development of our inner, spiritual world, which can become even bigger, more beautiful and more complex than this outer one, can become a refuge in moments when life does not caress us.
There are almost no better opportunities for learning, personal development and self-awareness than humiliations and life defeats. They are often cited as a source of motivation for people to reach for goals and achieve results that they themselves did not believe they could ever achieve.
Justice is not something to be expected, it is not a stable thing in nature. The world is as it is. Simply, you need to get the best out of everything that comes your way, that’s all you can do.
If someone is already lucky enough to be alive and born as a human being, then it may be a good idea to try something that no one else has ever tried. It is both harder and more dangerous, and any falls will be from greater heights. But to exist and not try anything new for fifty, seventy or a hundred years, both a turtle and a tree can do that.
The most common reason why some people have gained what many others have not is that they dared.