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Philip K. Dick on Reality, Adaption and Authenticity

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”
“The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things. Before the new things can be born the old must perish. This is a dangerous realization, because it tells us that we must eventually part with much of what is familiar to us. And that hurts. But that is part of the script of life. Unless we can psychologically accommodate change, we ourselves begin to die, inwardly. What I am saying is that objects, customs, habits, and ways of life must perish so that the authentic human being can live. And it is the authentic human being who matters most, the viable, elastic organism which can bounce back, absorb, and deal with the new.”
“The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not.”

Philip K. Dick

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Phillosoph

Worship

Man has always worshipped one thing, himself, and himself only, either in the flesh or in the ghost—that is, in the non-flesh or the objective nothing—till he arrived at the transcendental Man, the superlative, the ideal of Himself
The Book of the Sword, 1884 p.74
Richard Burton
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Phillosoph

A Question of Attitude

The colonel sat back. “Most of us are accustomed to think of ourselves as intelligent people. We move through life in our accustomed orbits, expect things always to remain basically as they are now, have repeated opportunities to rehearse our behavior patterns for the few standard situations we meet, and nevertheless we fall into one mess after another—because we don’t really think. If things turn out badly for us, our reaction is to complain that the situation wasn’t set up right in the first place.”
The colonel looked at Bergen intently, and Bergen sensed that this comment had a personal application. “Yes, sir,” he said.
The colonel leaned back and said thoughtfully, “There are two basic attitudes, or ways of looking at things. The human race uses these two attitudes to move forward, much as a man uses his legs to walk. And it’s just as catastrophic for a member of the human race to misplace these two attitudes as it is for him to cross his left leg in front of his right leg, and then try to take a step with his right leg.
“The first attitude is that of recognizing the defect. In one form, this is pure gripe, the attitude of ‘headquarters is too stupid to get their head out of their boot.’ But it’s also the attitude of the man who looks around, and asks himself if things couldn’t be improved. From this attitude arises a lot of noise, but, properly used, it’s also one of the main driving forces for progress. If men had always been satisfied, who would ever have tried anything new?
“So, you see, it’s useful to see imperfections. But it’s useless to keep our minds focused on imperfections. Having seen the imperfections, next we shift our attention to look for some means of improvement. We see the obstacle, then look for the way through or around. And that is what you didn’t do. Right?”
“Yes, sir,” said Bergen miserably.”
A Question of Attitude (1967)
Christopher Anvil
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Phillosoph

Initiative and Obedience

“You realize, men, that many qualities are required of you, and some of them may seem contradictory. Bear in mind that such qualities as personal initiative and the capacity for strict obedience, while certainly capable of total opposition, are not necessarily contradictory. The human body is supplied with muscles so arranged that one set can oppose and frustrate the action of another set. Nevertheless, although there is a wrong way to use them, the body still has to have both sets to function properly. Bear this in mind. A quality may be indispensable, but insufficient by itself. And the necessary additional quality may be its apparent opposite.”
Basic (1969)
Christopher Anvil
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On Wealth

“…only those are seen to be great and illustrious that show themselves so by the virtue, wealth, and generosity of their possessors. I have said virtue, wealth, and generosity, because a great man who is vicious will be a great example of vice, and a rich man who is not generous will be merely a miserly beggar; for the possessor of wealth is not made happy by possessing it, but by spending it, and not by spending as he pleases, but by knowing how to spend it well.”
Don Quixote
by
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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Phillosoph

On “Woke”

“But here’s the irony. I think I am woke, but I think that word has changed. I think if woke still means what it used to mean, that you’re aware of your own privilege, you try and maximize equality, minimize oppression, be anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-homophobic… Yes, I’m definitely woke. If woke now means being a puritanical, authoritarian bully, who gets people fired for an honest opinion or even a fact, then, no, I’m not woke. Fuck that.”
Ricky Gervais: Armageddon (2023) | Transcript