Andrew Gibson (1) (1949–)

A little humorous, and a little informative, and includes some valid arguments, but it's not philosophy; erratic and inconsistent thoughts maybe. They're self-contradictory in some places. Antinatalism, nihilism, error theory...but it just reminded me of cohle's captivating worldview.

Human existence is a tragedy that need not have been, it not for the intervention in our lives of a single, calamitous event: the evolution of consciousness—consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We show more became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect separated from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law.
We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self. This accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed, with total assurance, that we’re each somebody. When, in fact, everybody’s nobody.
When for you there is only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the felt in reference to the felt, only the cognized in reference to the cognized — there is no you here. When there is no you here, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor there nor between the two. That, just this, is the end of suffering.

We've all got what I call a life trap. There's gene deep certainty that things will be different. That you'll move to another city and meet people that will be the friends for the rest of your lives. That you'll fall in love and be fulfilled. Fucking fulfillment. And closure. Whatever the fuck those two fucking empty jars to hold this shit storm...Nothing's ever fulfilled! Until the very end. And closure. No. Nothing is ever over... show less

A little humorous, and a little informative, and includes some valid arguments, but it's not philosophy; erratic and inconsistent thoughts maybe. They're self-contradictory in some places. Antinatalism, nihilism, error theory...but it just reminded me of cohle's captivating worldview.

Human existence is a tragedy that need not have been, it not for the intervention in our lives of a single, calamitous event: the evolution of consciousness—consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We show more became too self-aware. Nature created an aspect separated from itself, we are creatures that should not exist by natural law.
We are things that labor under the illusion of having a self. This accretion of sensory experience and feeling, programmed, with total assurance, that we’re each somebody. When, in fact, everybody’s nobody.
When for you there is only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the felt in reference to the felt, only the cognized in reference to the cognized — there is no you here. When there is no you here, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor there nor between the two. That, just this, is the end of suffering.

We've all got what I call a life trap. There's gene deep certainty that things will be different. That you'll move to another city and meet people that will be the friends for the rest of your lives. That you'll fall in love and be fulfilled. Fucking fulfillment. And closure. Whatever the fuck those two fucking empty jars to hold this shit storm...Nothing's ever fulfilled! Until the very end. And closure. No. Nothing is ever over... show less

Ellis's bedtime reading is interrupted by the emergence from under the duvet of a small, woebegone creature called a Hummick, which claims that it is being pursued. Ellis doesn't think he can help, but when the Hummick suddenly vanishes, he thinks he had better investigate. Between the duvet and the mattress he discovers an entrance to a strange world with bizarre inhabitants.

This is a genial and undemanding fantasy, in which Ellis meets a rather randomly weird selection of characters in a show more setting which seems to lack any particularly rational order (like Alice in Wonderland without the intellectual jokes, or Pilgrim's Progress without the allegory). The book is helped by the delightful illustrations of such creatures as the Hummick (like a pancake with legs and floppy ears) and the lugubrious and inexplicably malevolent Sloons with their square heads and staring eyes. I'm not great at age-ranges, but I guess it would be a good one to give 8- to 11-year-olds. MB 11-v-2008 show less