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My favorite parts of this book are when Tolentino is describing spiritual ecstasy a la Julian of Norwich - achieved through religion or music or actual drugs, but still this feeling is not often discussed in a pop culture setting and it is lovely to see.
Anyway, good quotes:
"I was 21, and I was trying my hardest to be permeable, to be alive to other people's suffering, but I didn't know how to stop being permeable when it was pointless, when it was ultimately narcissistic, when it did no good."
"(L)ately I've been wondering how everything got so intimately terrible, and why, exactly, we keep playing along. How did a huge number of people begin spending the bulk of our disappearing free time in an openly torturous environment? (...) The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving."
"What are the conditions that make you feel holy, divine? For me, this calculus has been unreliable. I have been overpowered with ecstasy in religious settings, during bouts of hedonistic excess, on Friday afternoons walking sober in the park as the sun turns everything translucent gold."
"You feel that your soul is dazzling, delicate, unlimited; you understand that you can give the best of yourself away to everyone you love without ever feeling depleted."
Anyway, good quotes:
"I was 21, and I was trying my hardest to be permeable, to be alive to other people's suffering, but I didn't know how to stop being permeable when it was pointless, when it was ultimately narcissistic, when it did no good."
"(L)ately I've been wondering how everything got so intimately terrible, and why, exactly, we keep playing along. How did a huge number of people begin spending the bulk of our disappearing free time in an openly torturous environment? (...) The internet reminds us on a daily basis that it is not at all rewarding to become aware of problems that you have no reasonable hope of solving."
"What are the conditions that make you feel holy, divine? For me, this calculus has been unreliable. I have been overpowered with ecstasy in religious settings, during bouts of hedonistic excess, on Friday afternoons walking sober in the park as the sun turns everything translucent gold."
"You feel that your soul is dazzling, delicate, unlimited; you understand that you can give the best of yourself away to everyone you love without ever feeling depleted."
