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This is the question at the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien’s 1954 masterwork, *The Lord of the Rings*. Middle-earth is marred by civilizational decline, the loss of hope among men, and a profound sense that the beauty of the past is doomed to decay. This slow fading was the author’s attempt to express something he had felt all his life, which he once described as a “heart-racking sense of the vanished past.”
How to Live Through a Great Decline
The Culturist
“A good cook changes his knife once a year — because he cuts. A mediocre cook changes his knife once a month — because he hacks. I’ve had this knife of mine for nineteen years and I’ve cut up thousands of oxen with it, and yet the blade is as good as though it had just come from the grindstone. There are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has really no thickness. If you insert what has no thickness into such spaces, then there’s plenty of room — more than enough for the blade to play about it. That’s why after nineteen years the blade of my knife is still as good as when it first came from the grindstone.
The Dexterous Butcher – Zhuangzi
Vanessa Able
If they can silence you for one reason, they can silence you for any reason.
Tweets From Naval
@naval on Twitter
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