Death of the Pharaoh Firstborn son, 1872, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

Medium: oil,canvas

https://www.wikiart.org/en/sir-lawrence-alma-tadema/death-of-the-pharaoh-firstborn-son-1872

“He who wants to set a good example must add a grain of foolishness to his virtue; then others can imitate and, at the same time, rise above the one being imitated — something which people love.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko captured by Rosetta

“The ‘pessimists’ are really not very different from the optimists. They live just as comfortably and are just as little engaged. The fate of humanity is as little their concern as it is the optimists’. They do not feel despair; if they did, they would not, and could not, live as contentedly as they do. And while their pessimism functions largely to protect the pessimists from any inner demand to do something, by projecting the idea that nothing can be done, the optimists defend themselves against the same inner demand by persuading themselves that everything is moving in the right direction anyway, so nothing needs to be done.”

— Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, 484-485

Modesty, 1902, William-Adolphe Bouguereau

Medium: oil,canvas

« Almost all contemporary [video] games contain some mimetic elements of work and market exchange. They don’t offer fantasies of escape, of imaginative play for its own sake; they offer a fantasy of rules—a rationality otherwise missing from the contemporary wage labor process. Vicky Osterweil has called this type of game a “utopian work simulator”; it doles out rewards at predictable intervals in exchange for our disciplined effort. These rewards can make the game easier, allow us to purchase in-game adornments, signal our achievements to others, and progress in a logical and satisfying trajectory toward an achievable goal.

Games remain a form of diversion, but what they divert us from is not our labor, but our disappointment with its volatility, its arbitrariness, its cruelty and unfairness. Games compensate for an absence of control, reliable feedback, clear goals, and fair rewards in our working lives. In this way, games remain a kind of wish fulfillment, one in which the ideological fictions of capitalism are realized. »

— Sam Adler-Bell, “All Work and No Play”

“Souls resemble other souls, and those that resemble each other are in harmony, that is why people are attracted towards those they resemble.”

— Imam Ali (a.s.), Bihar al-Anwar, v. 78, p. 92, no. 100

Daniele Valeriani (Italian, b. 1974, Rome, Italy) - Il Mago, la Morte e il Diavolo (detail), 2017, Paintings: Digital Art

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Untitled, Zdislav Beksinski

Zdzislaw Beksinski 

vintage photography work from the 1950s/1960s

A Galactic Spectacle by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

Cars are the gayest of all typically male interests.

A cosmic question in NGC 4696 by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

“The Higher World is incorruptible, but instead of self-purification through thought and labor, people still try to bribe the Higher Grace. In such ignorance is expressed a complete unwillingness to reflect upon the essential nature of the worlds. The history of prayer shows that at first hymns were chanted, then prayers were spoken for all beings, and only later did man dare to importune with demands for himself. Sufficient evidences have been given as to how worthless for evolution is everything engendered by selfishness. One cannot purchase favor and justice. Is it not shameful that such words must be repeated? One may ask oneself, Is not involution taking place? The end of Kali Yuga can also produce such manifestations. Terrible cataclysms have been indicated, but what can be more frightful than a catastrophe of the spirit. No earthquake can be compared with the dissolution of consciousness. All forces need to be intensified in order to hold back humanity from the abyss, therefore meditation about the Higher World is a necessity of the day.”

— Agni Yoga, Aum, p. 236