yeah, this is Lem at his most philosophical, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of his conclusions. When your civilization is technologically powerful enough to do anything, how do you decide what you ought to do? What ought one to pursue in the face of absolute freedom?
I shall not act, because I can, with certainty, and by that action do everything I wish. Nothing remains for us then but to sit here among the fossils of rats, in this maze of dried-up sewers.” I had no answer to these words. Seeing the pointlessness of staying any longer on the planet, I bade the good friars a fond and tearful farewell, loaded my rocket, which had all this time been safely camouflaged, and started on the journey home, a different man than the one who not so very long ago had landed there.
Thank you for the story! I thought he was giggling at/trolling both the commies and the church, when i read this as a kid. Now it occurred to me - after a few decades - that this might be about a deep kind of disillusionment, one that comes with the effect of 'future shock' (he is taking the future shock to an extreme here)
Thank you for uploading this. This is my favorite voyage in the star diaries
yeah, this is Lem at his most philosophical, and I find myself agreeing with a lot of his conclusions. When your civilization is technologically powerful enough to do anything, how do you decide what you ought to do? What ought one to pursue in the face of absolute freedom?
@@Y0UT0PIA Join The Culture.
I shall not
act, because I can, with certainty, and by that action do everything I wish. Nothing remains for us then but to sit here among the fossils of rats, in this maze of dried-up sewers.”
I had no answer to these words. Seeing the pointlessness of staying any
longer on the planet, I bade the good friars a fond and tearful farewell, loaded my rocket, which had all this time been safely camouflaged, and started on the journey home, a different man than the one who not so very long ago had landed there.
yay thanky immensely
Thank you for the story! I thought he was giggling at/trolling both the commies and the church, when i read this as a kid. Now it occurred to me - after a few decades - that this might be about a deep kind of disillusionment, one that comes with the effect of 'future shock' (he is taking the future shock to an extreme here)