west london tales 8

The woman whose flat downstairs I sometimes flood is a Coptic Egyptian. She doesn't hold the flood against me, and we make small talk in the lift. Today I came back with vegetables from the market, and she said to me: 'The market is getting so expensive now'. She's right, it is. The price of vegetables has gone through the roof in the past few weeks, for all kinds of reasons. For a moment it seemed like we could indeed be living in a world where the ebbs and flows of fortune are revealed by the price of broccoli or spuds. A world we ususally associate with markets in distant countries; markets where shopping has a meaning which is both exactly the same and completely different to our own.

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on economics, love, war, etc

Crises are subject to the rules of drama, rather than the rules of logic.

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Which is another way of saying: Drama contains its own logic. Whose connection to the logic of physics or mathematics is tenuous, at best. And, in the world of humans, infinitely more powerful.

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stating the obvious

If you don't fight you're not a fighter.

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If you don't write you're not a writer.

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destiny

The older you get the easier it becomes to believe in it.

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solitude

The degree to which we enjoying being on our own depends to an extent on the degree to which we have come to accept ourselves for who we think we are.

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say it ain't so

The average truth tells as many lies as the average lie.

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