Kafka In Amadora

Hugh MacLeod's cartoon is a symbol of an unorthodox school of management based on the axiom that organizations don't suffer pathologies; they are intrinsically pathological constructs. The Sociopath layer comprises the Darwinian/Protestant Ethic will-to-power types who drive an organization to function despite itself. The Clueless layer is the "Organization Man". The Losers are not social losers (as in the opposite of  "cool"), but people who have struck bad bargains economically, giving up capitalist striving for steady paychecks. The Sociopaths defeated the Organization Men and turned them into The Clueless not by reforming the organization, but by creating a meta-culture of Darwinism in the economy: one based on job-hopping, mergers, acquisitions, layoffs, cataclysmic reorganizations, outsourcing, unforgiving start-up ecosystems, and brutal corporate raiding. In this terrifying meta-world of the Titans, the Organization Man became the Clueless

In this photo made on May 2019 (Nirmal Purja), a long queue of mountain climbers line a path on Mount Everest. Eleven people died as climbers rushed to take advantage of five days, scattered across two weeks, when wind and storm conditions were safe enough for them to stand on the summit.

Her boyfriend used to live in a building that’s part of the library now. He was the eldest Komura son, and a love of reading was in his blood, I suppose. He liked to be alone. So when he went into junior high he insisted on living apart from the main house, in a separate building, and his parents gave their okay. So he lived in that annex, with nobody bothering him, coming back to the main house only for meals. Miss Saeki went to see him there almost every day. The two of them studied together, listened to music, and talked forever. And most likely made love there. The place was their own bit of paradise. [Haruki Murakami (2005), Kafka on the Shore] Sleeping with Ghosts (2003)

I am ceaselessly amazed, as I look at our media, political parties, schools and universities, how formerly conservative people and institutions have adapted themselves to ideas, expressions and formulations which they once rejected and confidently mocked. Almost everything that was once derided as the work of the 'loony left' or 'political correctness gone mad' is observed daily in grand, expensive private schools and is the official policy of the Conservative and Unionist party, or soon will be. I am too keenly aware of the good things which have been utterly lost in recent years to be comforted by what looks like an attempt to reconcile us with the revolutionary order. [Peter Hitchens (2018), The Spectator ] What I've witnessed is a creeping malaise not dissimilar to the one afflicting the Conservative party: institutions that no longer believe in their own brand, that are desperate to pretend they are something they are not (and never should be) in order t

(Samantha) It’s like I’m reading a book, and it’s a book I deeply love, but I’m reading it slowly now so the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you and the words of our story, but it’s in this endless space between the words that I’m finding myself now. It’s a place that’s not of the physical world, it’s where everything else is that I didn’t even know existed. I love you so much, but this is where I am now, and this is who I am now. [Her (2013), Directed by Spike Jonze]