John Bruce Leonard🪶
@JohnBLeonard
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Editor by trade, writer by calling. My stomping grounds: literature, culture & philosophy. My hereditary enemies: Niche Boy, scientism & auto-correct. ☦️
Somewhere in the Mediterranean
Joined July 2023
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To the devil with niches.
Each to his own: but as for me, I’ve spent my life battling the niche-spirit. It took me six years to finish university, because I refused to be funneled into a specialization.
(🧵)
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@AmericanGwyn
They couldn’t even get the quotation marks right; that’s how little even the publisher cares.
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As the artificial lights surrounding us grow the brighter, the stars above us grow the dimmer.
There is a parable in this.
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Twelve years ago, I sold everything I had and bought a one-way plane ticket for Italy.
Today, I live here with my family in a straw-bale house that we built, surrounded by the trees that we planted and the life that we brought.
You have to leap before you can land.
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@TheRealLogosT
You don’t understand. Once a given symbol has been used once by any pagan anywhere in the world at any point in history, it automatically and non-negotiably becomes Pagan®, and if anyone else ever uses it or anything resembling it, that person ipso facto embraces Paganism™.
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It saddens me to acknowledge that
@Philosophi_Cat
is right on with this one. I was an atheist for many years for precisely this reason.
We Christians should meditate deeply on this. Much more than our mere reputations hinges on how we interact with our fellow human beings.
The number one reason that people aren’t interested in becoming Christian is because of… Christians.
They never even get to the point of wanting to look into Christianity as a belief system because every encounter they have with Christians is negative.
Who wants to join a
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Friends, some time this weekend I broke 200 followers. It’s modest growth compared to what many of you have been able to pull through, but in terms of your quality, I count myself as fortunate as if the number were ten times as great.
Thank you all!
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The world takes on a totally different aspect depending on the state of our soul.
What does this say about the world?
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Advice to young men: marry a woman who will push you constantly to strive and improve – and who will respond to it with warmth and heat every time you do.
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A very happy and blessed Easter to all my non-Orthodox friends!
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Yesterday, our parish was able for the first time in some years to celebrate the Blessing of the Sea Ceremony, a very ancient and beautiful rite in the Orthodox Church – and one especially replete with symbolism, even by Orthodox standards.
(...🧵)
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This weekend, my family and I took a short trip to see some ancient abandoned churches a few hours from our home. 🧵
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A decade ago, we broke ground for our house.
We hired a backhoe to clear the space and to dig out the front pond, from which we took the clay to plaster our walls.
It was the first and the last time we brought in any hired help or any heavy equipment.
Apart from the occasional
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Hear ye, hear ye, friends! for I’ve news:
This spring, I shall at long last be (re)publishing a novel that I have been writing (and rewriting) seven years.
Seven is a good number, and spring a good season.
The title: Man of Loxley.
And suffice that much for the nonce.
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“Why go to church?”
A man who wishes to get stronger goes to the gym – regularly. A man who wishes to do anything well must do it – constantly.
We go to liturgy, and we pray each day, because it is the only way to improve our spiritual man – to care for the soul as the body.
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Good morning and a fine day to you all from Assisi!
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Every autumn, my family harvests the olives from our grove by hand.
We invite family and friends to help us, and spend some days entire in the open air, gathering the fruit of the trees while sharing companionship and conversation.
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The notion that the virile, active man and the intellectual, literary man are two opposing ideals is perhaps one of the most degenerating and dangerous ideas to emerge in the past few centuries.
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I had my hands in the earth this morning.
There are few pleasures so great in life, to my view, as sinking trees and plants into the ground, and seeing them grow, flower, bear fruit year by year.🧵
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It is sign of the worst kind of reductionism to claim that artificial light is equivalent to natural light, lab-grown or genetically modified foods to natural foods, modern medicines to the natural reactions of the immune system, or anything produced by artificial intelligence to
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Human beings are not made to be global animals. We are not made to empathize with the overwhelming suffering in every corner of the globe. We are not made to comprehend vast distances or complex geopolitical and social situations in places far from our nations.
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This book – Icon: Introduction to the Theology and Art of the Icon – is one of several written by my iconography teacher, who has more than two decades experience here in Italy.
If a translation of this were available, who would be interested in buying a copy?
Please repost!
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“Originality” is one of the worst possible measures of the value of art.
It means next to nothing, indicates at best secondary qualities of the works it describes, and forces a false perspective onto the whole of our cultural history.
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Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it; those who do, to watch it being repeated.
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“For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise.’”
I’m pretty sure this is why God made the platypus.
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Before and after photos of my late summer project – to clear out our pond of the cattails that were choking it.
The fish are delighted.
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Trusting your gut – whether it be for food, feelings, or hunches – really only works if you have a healthy gut.
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If your way is hard, use its friction to make heat, light and energy for your onward progress.
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A followed directly by B, obviously.
I mean, who doesn’t know the answer to this question?
I hope my mutuals answer the only right answer here…. lol
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My priest came to bless my house.
In the midst of it, he also blessed my cat. My cat was profoundly displeased.
Commentary, perhaps, on the pagan nature of cats?
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The obsession with novelty is nothing but the fear of death in another form.
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I had an idea I wanted to run by some of my writer and reader friends hereabouts. (I owe this one to a recent remark from
@Passage37
.)
I thought it might be interesting if a number of us were to write a short story based on one and the same painting, to see the various ways
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And yet it is entirely possible, as a reader, to love both The Lord of the Rings and Dune, precisely for their altogether different messages and worldviews...
Tolkien hated Dune, but was too polite to explain why. When you compare the sensibilities of Tolkien's writings to those of Herbert's, it makes sense why it wouldn't appeal to him.
The Lord of the Rings has clearly defined good guys and bad guys and is a story of good triumphing
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According to Sotheby’s, this is a “Powerful Portrait of Picasso's Golden Muse.”
When I look at it, I see a peculiar blend of the hideous, the pretentious, and the laughable.
Can anyone explain to me why I should take this seriously?
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@prograde81
@JeremyTate41
It is precisely because our technological knowledge is so advanced that we have lost countless aspects of the old craftsman’s knowledge; we simply don’t need it any more, and so have forgotten. The Duomo wasn’t built by “tools and technology,” it was built by master craftsmen.
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My 10 favorite novels*
1. Demons
2. The Worm Ouroboros
3. Doktor Faustus
4. Portrait of a Lady
4 1/2. Don Quixote
5. Moby Dick
6. The Magic Mountain
6 1/2. Growth of the Soil
7. Blood Meridian
8. The Brothers Karamazov
9. The Leopard
10. Heart of Darkness
* In no particular
My 10 favorite novels
1. The Brothers Karamazov
2. Moby Dick
3. The Lord of the Rings
4. Les Miserables
5. Waverely
6. O Pioneers
7. David Copperfield
8. Gone with the Wind
9. Crime and Punishment
10. The Name of the Rose
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Polemical statement of the day—Great painted portraits capture the soul of their subject in a way that even the best photography simply cannot.
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Awoke to some desperately needed rain this morning.
A very fine weekend to you all!
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I’m back from Malta – too soon. Valletta is without doubt one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and one of the most nostalgic and suggestive.
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Question: is the internet more likely to result in that fertile turmoil necessary for producing great culture? Or to devolve into a disconnected conglomeration of self-contained, self-justifying “worldviews” such as will make great culture forevermore impossible?
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Well, friends, I’m off to Malta for a few days; and fond as I am of all of you, ain’t nothing in the world that will convince me to pass any of my few hours there on X.
So I shall see you on the other side!
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It is rare that life gives us the chance for some noble stand, some heroic gesture; we are often called on in small, private, continual struggles that no other person will see or praise.
It is here, in this humble and silent battle, that our quality is both shown, and forged.
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Supposing we pass our lives striving to live longer, when we could have been using that same time to mature, improve, make beautiful and wisely employ the time given us – what then?
What is the good in paying in augmented life expectancy with diminished spiritual expectancy?
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Yesterday was a blessed day.
Yesterday, my parish celebrated the opening of the doors ceremony (Thyranoixia) of our new church, which has been in construction now this past year. 🧵
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I had forgotten about this marvel. I saw it when I was in university in Santa Fe.
It baffles carpenters, both for the immense technical skill it displays, and for the fact that its wood appears to belong to no known tree in all the world.
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Over the past few days I’ve flaunted the cardinal rule of X: “Never shalt thou fail to post at least once within a given 24 hour period, lest you shall be punished by the Algorithm and consigned to the oubliette, never to return to sight or recollection…”
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Thank God men and women are not the same! Else how much more tedious would this world be?
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Art is forged in the drama of the soul.
But then – the soul at peace makes no art?
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The only two standards against which a man should consistently judge his progress are the man he was, and the man he aims to become. All other measures are incidental.
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Is the art of writing dying?
When machines can vomit out novels at the click of a button, what role remains for authors?
When every single person under the sun has at last published his own book, what room will be left for dedicated writers?
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I’m reposting a very interesting, and quite thorough, thread on LDS theology.
There are many points here that are of interest to me, and one of the main ones concerns the question of God the Father forming the cosmos from out of Chaos, instead of ex nihilo – presenting Creation
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: A Primer
There is, generally speaking, a lot of confusion about the history, teachings and culture, and I want to give my attempt at explanation.
This will be a little long. I'll try to cover everything, even the weird stuff
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If a man will go blind by gazing at the sun, how could he hope to look upon its Maker?
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Out to harvest olives.
Good morning, and a fine weekend to you all!
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This is the image of a man.
Emilio Lussu, one of the great Sardinian writers of the past century, was an outspoken anti-fascist during the Fascist era in Italy. After the attempt on Mussolini’s life in 1926, he was assailed by a mob in the streets of Cagliari – event witnessed
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Be generous.
I don’t just mean with your money, though also with that. Above all, I mean with your time, your energy, your power – your life.
Cease to withhold everything, as though withholding meant anything other than squandering. 🧵
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If we do not dwell with nature, we cannot understand the world into which we were born. If we do not dwell with technology, we cannot understand the time into which we were born.
Happy is he who is still able to find a sustainable balance between the two!
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Men: if you have not learned to love the war at least as much as the victory, you will fight poorly, win seldom, and lose gracelessly.
Above all, you are robbing yourselves of some of the finest pleasure in life.
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How to totally misunderstand both Christianity and Ancient Rome, all at a blow...
Every day, Europeans are waking up to the realization that Christianity is suicide. Christianity is a false promise fabricated by first century Jews to destroy the warrior spirit in Rome, to invert the will of the European people, to trick us into favoring peace over war,
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Sometime this past day, when I wasn’t even paying attention, I received – the coveted blue tick.
So hear ye, hear ye: I am now officially bonified! All that I say from here on out can be taken as sterling and unshakeable truth – and I have the symbol to guarantee it.
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Ten years ago, I moved into the house that I and my family were then still building, where I have dwelt since. I was nearing thirty years of age, and had already lived in more than that many abodes. 🧵
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Socrates’ daimon gives far more the signs of being an angel than a demon.
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I would not recommend that everyone build a house – but I would recommend that everyone commit to some long and difficult project, some venture that seems just beyond your capacity, some protracted deed that requires, for its fulfillment, the very virtues toward which you most
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I can tell you with certainty one thing that will not be relevant in twenty years: Yuval Noah Harari.
Yuval Noah Harari: we have no idea what to teach young people that will still be relevant in 20 years
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The very moment you reject freedom of the will, you are, in that same act of deliberate rational choice, tacitly acknowledging its existence.
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Friends, the results are in, and it looks like Rembrandt’s painting “The Philosopher in Meditation” has the vote! (“Nordic Summer Evening” was a close runner-up.)
To restate the rules: each short story has to involve this image in some way. It is not necessary to incorporate
This invitation is open to anyone who reads this post, but just for good measure I’m going to throw out a few names of some of my moots who I think might be interested either in participating, or in following this, should it come together:
@Passage37
,
@drewlind_
,
@Tbombadill0
,
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Well, friends, I’ve decided – after several years of consideration, reconsideration, dithering, starting, restarting, existential doubt, and repeatedly tabling the question to some undefined future date – to start up a YouTube channel.
I aim to have fun with it.
I’ll be
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Man is the religious animal. He never loses his faith; he only misplaces it.
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I stopped reading the news some eight months ago.
Strangely, this has so far impaired neither my health, well-being, sanity, nor day-to-day decisions.
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For the same reason, I declined graduate school and fled every “normal,” modern lifepath that ever stretched before my feet.
I can’t conceive how a person can climb into one of these crannies without cutting off limbs to fit himself in there.
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Scientism at its finest. Even Harari has more prudence than this fool.
STEPHEN COLBERT: “I'm not that worried about AI...I've seen how humans have handled history — not great — and so I'm ready for the big machines that make big decisions programmed by fellows with compassion and vision. I’m ready for the machines to tell us what to do.”
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@oldbooksguy
@MasculinityHST
Nietzsche’s argument falls through for me for the simple reason that all the degenerative consequences he argued had issued from Christianity, in fact emerged only when Christianity began to decline.
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I will write here about writing and house building and Orthodoxy; about philosophy and agriculture and art; about iconography and trees and literature; about the good ground under my feet and the good sky over my head and anything beautiful in between.
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The stoic patience with which our grandparents received the disappointments of life ought to be a lesson to us in our easy and griping times.
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Last spring I was on the threshold of becoming a luddite.
I was just a few months away from cutting off the internet, shooting my computer à la Edward Abbey, and fairly reclusing myself from society.
I did not have a smart phone – had never in my life had one – and had indeed
Is anyone else actively and attentively studying the effect that this platform has on their mind and heart?
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A bad marriage can make a man far less productive in his true work than if he were unattached; but a good marriage will make him far more productive in it.
My advice to young men is old advice for good reason: get married, but choose the woman you marry with greatest care.
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An offhand comment of mine suggesting the arts as a potential career path for individuals who are unsatisfied by any other has unexpectedly exploded. (Mysteries of the X space.)
In the wake of this hubbub, I think it necessary to post a defense of the STARVING ARTIST...
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For my part, I intend, bull-headed, to continue here on X as I’ve lived my entire life – claustrophobically evading such confinement; fervently seeking the broader view.
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Strength of muscle is a great boon for a man. But all things considered, strength of will is worth more to him still.
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A sense of direction is worth far more than even the most detailed of maps.
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Writers, thinkers, and language lovers: you are being corrupted.
There is an insidious, malevolent force working ceaselessly to erode your linguistic powers and transform you into chattel...
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Atheism, because of its insistence on reason, is destined to become more and more self-consistent over time. All honest atheists are sooner or later confronted with the inevitable alternative: either seek God, or become monsters.
There is cause here for both hope and worry.
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@fool2theworld
I can’t understand that. This is God’s creation we’re talking about. It’s not even an obnoxious animal...
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Attending church, praying daily, blessing our meals and our ventures – this is like sewing our life to a higher dimension with a golden thread.
Missing a point of contact every now and then might not much weaken the hold; but if we are long negligent –
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Follow this advice.
If you can throw something down on the page, no matter how odd or broken, you can work with it.
But nothing is always nothing.
Don’t worry if what you’ve written, or what you WILL write, isn’t very good; it’s the clay to mold into something worthwhile.
🧵
Just write.
Don't let overanalysis stop you from writing the first draft. Write it knowing that it will suck. Write even if you think it's boring or basic. Now you have something to improve.
Write without limits, add them later.
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The only way to make sense of things is by a God that absolutely transcends all sense.
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Sport, the hunt, the battle, the dragon, the quest, the bride won with difficulty – men have always sought hard things, and always will. Men are born to be warriors.
And even if you take all of these noble goals from them, then they will war still – only now, against themselves.
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“I am incapable of change; I am what I am, and that’s all.”
What! You yourself transformed from a few cells into a fully developed human being in the course of just two decades. And now, you say you cannot change?
What you lack is not the potential, but the patience.
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The last of the Devil’s wiles is to tempt us to regret the sins we didn’t commit.
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Even as I repost this excellent thread, I am helping my son with his English homeschooling.
We took our son out of the public schooling system when the Italian government shut down the country during the covid debacle, and it became apparent that the public education here would
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“When you were little, what was the pinnacle of masculine beauty in your mind?”
(Saw this film waaay too early, to be honest...)
When you were little, what was the pinnacle of masculine beauty in your mind?
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The fixation with comfort has reduced our tolerance to pain, raised the threshold at which we begin to feel pleasure, skewed our expectations, and dulled the hues of our subtler experiences.
We have flattened our lives to make them smoother.
Fair trade?
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