The world is not what it seems
But it isn’t anything else either
(Raymond Queneau)
I must confess, I do like a quote. And as quotes go, it doesn’t get much better than this. While the minimalists dream of carrying the sum of their worldly possessions in a knapsack, and the physicists cherish the hope of arriving at an equation for the ‘Theory of Everything’ that could be printed comfortably on a t-shirt, I enjoy the idea that the essence of any philosophy worth its salt could be expressed within a single pithy epithet. Like a lone jewel from Indra’s Net, the whole system could be intuited from this single point which reflected and implied all the others. Queneau’s might be the closest I’ve come thus far. Never mind that he likely pinched it from the Lankavatara Sutra. It’s a little more elegant than ‘Shit Happens’ which for me would be another strong contender. Does the statement need elaboration? If so it has either failed in it’s ambition or you have yet to appreciate just how little more can meaningfully be said.
