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PaperclipPerfector  21hr ago (text post)   580 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 12, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still attempting Taylor's A Secular Age without much progress. Have been reading a lot of Theodore Dalrymple essays.

Wrapped up The Worm Ouroboros. Overall liked it a lot, but not sure that I am interested in the spiritual sequels at this point.

Now on Dostoyevsky's The Gambler. I'm finding it useful to ask Claude about some of the historical context around the Polish-Russian wars. It's not key to the story but there's a few references to it that add a bit of depth. With LLMs it's like having a very knowledgeable friend on call who's read everything about everything and knows how they're related, so I no longer have an excuse to not bother figuring out the references.

It was a strange thing: I had plenty to think about, yet I was completely absorbed in analyzing the nature of my feelings for Polina. Truly, I had found it easier during those two weeks of absence than I did now, on the day of my return—even though, while traveling, I had pined like a madman, paced about frantically, and constantly seen her before me, even in my sleep. Once—it was in Switzerland—I fell asleep in the railway carriage and apparently started talking aloud to Polina, making all my fellow passengers laugh. And now, once again, I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once again I failed to answer it—or rather, I answered myself, for the hundredth time, that I hated her. Yes, I loathed her. There were moments—specifically, at the end of our conversations—when I would have given half my life to strangle her! I swear, if it had been possible to slowly plunge a sharp knife into her breast, I think I would have seized it with delight. And yet—I swear by everything holy—if, up on the Schlangenberg, at that fashionable lookout point, she had actually said to me, "Throw yourself down," I would have thrown myself down instantly, and with delight, too. I knew this. One way or another, the situation had to be resolved. She understood all this perfectly, and the thought that I was fully and clearly aware of her utter inaccessibility to me—of the impossibility of my fantasies ever coming true—that thought, I am certain, gave her immense pleasure; otherwise, how could she—cautious and intelligent as she was—have allowed such intimacy and frankness between us? It seemed to me that, all along, she had looked at me the way that ancient empress did when she began to undress in front of her slave, regarding him as less than human. Yes, many times she had regarded me as less than human...

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