
Hell Breaks Loose - pepys
https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/happiness/hell-breaks-loose
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ablation
> "Ovid wrote in his Metamorphoses that when Orpheus went down to the
> underworld to find his love, Eurydice, “all the places that he’d seen before
> / He recognized again.” He passed through these horrors to find her and
> began to lead her back into the light. “There hand in hand they stroll, the
> two together,” Ovid wrote. “Sometimes he follows as she walks in front.” I
> chose to put out of mind what happened next in the myth. My wife and I—we
> are not living a myth. We got engaged in view of a glacier we knew might not
> survive our lifetimes. We’re alive in the world, this world, to which we are
> beholden, as we are to each other, as we are to all. We are only two, but
> two is a beginning. I grabbed her left hand with my right and did not let
> go."

What a remarkable, moving piece of writing. Rich and detailed, timely and
poignant.

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toomuchtodo
Off topic: Is this what the film What Dreams May Come was based off of?

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ZeroGravitas
I believe that was a novel by Richard Matheson, author of Twilight Zone
episodes, I am Legend, The Incredible Shrinking Man etc.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Matheson)

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jackhack
tldr: pseudo-intellectual handwringing angst about climate change, though
beautifully wrapped and decorated with literary references. An extra dose of
exaggeration and hyperbole included, no extra charge.

>>I was trying to look up—at the sky, where paradisiacal clouds still for now
remained—instead of down. After months of my mind figuring against the
firelight of hellish horrors, something strange had happened: I began wanting
again to learn about goodness and hope. I looked around my life to the people
I love, and to the people I know who love other people the way I try to love
people—that is, all we human beings struggling to be present for one another,
who seek strength when finding ourselves too frail to act.

That's the most positive paragraph I could find, yet it still reeks of
passivity and defeat.

We live in an age of luxury, splendor and wealth unimaginable just a few
hundred years ago. I hope the author is able to follow his own advice and find
that "goodness and hope" rather than focusing myopically on the negatives.
Life is too short to spend your precious time on earth in a hell of self-
induced punishment.

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ra1n85
Not sure why you’re being downvoted.

The article does capture a sentiment I see becoming more common, and which I
somewhat share. We are not nearly as hopeful or optimistic about the future
here in the West as in times past. It will be interesting to see how we
remember this period. Perhaps there is a precedent - something I’ll ponder and
read up on in my ample leisure time as a white collar westerner.

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DiseasedBadger
One has to wonder if the kind of person who passed the downvote requirement,
has so much time on their hands for a very good reason.

Perhaps not the most intelligent, rational, mature people. Else they'd be more
productively occupied, I'd imagine.

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sadness2
Very poetic. Provides inspiration to look to our loved ones, find hope and
strength in unity to have what impact and what joy we can

