115 Books
See allMore than the acceptance of death or living life with a purpose, I believe one trait of Marcus Aurelius that often goes unnoticed is its death-grip on intelligence as our most valuable asset, which gives us purpose and power of change. I believe it is without intelligence that its philosophy can easily fall into nihilism. He is also a very firm believer of a collective consciousness and intelligence, possibly deriving from his belief that we are all made biologically “equal” but have the possibility of fine-tuning ourselves into what we want to be.
During his whole 19 (?) years of being the Roman Imperator, he waged a constant war. Did not create it, but it befell onto him. I wonder if his meditative awareness arose from a grown humility during this warring period or was part of his personality all along.
A saga of men and monsters, where we soon find men to be worse than monsters. The Witcher series presents a social criticism of the evil deeds humans can commit. Who knew that the bath scene between Geralt and Yennefer would be the biggest foreshadowing in all of the fantasy world. Also, I consistently asked myself if the “Witcher” that gives name to the series is actually Ciri, and not Geralt.
I also find poetic how the saga portrays parenthood as derived from deeds, and not blood. A sterile mutant (Geralt) and a converted sorceress (Yennefer), both biologically sterile, serve the role of parents to Ciri like their family could never had. Also, the role of Fringilla in this series cannot be overstated.
It's at the end of the series that we finally understand why specifically the Witcher 3 game is called The Wild Hunt.
Read Dostoevsky in order:
1 Crime and Punishment
2 Notes from the underground
3 Demons
4 The Idiot
5 The brothers Karamazov