Cloud Atlas
por David Mitchell

Ideas destacadas y algunas notas, según lectura de Diego Leal

1. both circumvented the handicap of deafness by answering only those questions they believed had been asked & accepting only those answers they believed had been uttered—a stratagem embraced by many an American advocate - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-03 12:47:12)
2. As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-04 08:31:48)
3. Dom Grelsch breaks her impasse. “Marketeers prove”—he twirls a pencil—”every scientific term you use represents two thousand readers putting down the magazine and turning on a rerun of I Love Lucy.” - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-07 00:11:22)
4. perpetual encagement endows any mirage of salvation with credibility - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-08 03:05:24)
5. Perhaps those deprived of beauty perceive it most instinctively. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-09 01:32:32)
6. Purebloods, it seemed, were a sponge of demand that sucked goods and services from every vendor, dinery, bar, shop, and nook - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-09 02:35:06)
7. 889 cleared the table next to us; she had already forgotten me. My IQ may be higher, but she looked more content than I felt - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-09 02:47:13)
8. I mem’ry she answered, Yay, Old Uns’ Smart mastered sicks, miles, seeds an’ made miracles ord’nary, but it din’t master one thing, nay, a hunger in the hearts o’ humans, yay, a hunger for more. More what? I asked. Old Uns’d got ev’rythin’. Oh, more gear, more food, faster speeds, longer lifes, easier lifes, more power, yay. Now the Hole World is big, but it weren’t big ’nuff for that hunger what made Old Uns rip out the skies an’ boil up the seas an’ poison soil with crazed atoms an’ donkey ’bout with rotted seeds so new plagues was borned an’ babbits was freak-birthed. Fin’ly, bit’ly, then quicksharp, states busted into bar’bric tribes an’ the Civ’lize Days ended, ’cept for a few folds’n’pockets here’n’there - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 02:37:59)
9. People b’lief the world is built so an’ tellin ’em it ain’t so caves the roofs on their heads’n’maybe yours - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 03:06:26)
10. don’t that proof savages are stronger’n Civ’lized people? It ain’t savages what are stronger’n Civ’lizeds, Meronym reck’ned, it’s big numbers what’re stronger’n small numbers. Smart gived us a plus for many years, like my shooter gived me a plus back at Slopin’ Pond, but with ’nuff hands’n’minds that plus’ll be zeroed one day. So is it better to be savage’n to be Civ’lized? What’s the naked meanin’ b’hind them two words? Savages ain’t got no laws, I said, but Civ’lizeds got laws. Deeper’n that it’s this. The savage sat’fies his needs now. He’s hungry, he’ll eat. He’s angry, he’ll knuckly. He’s swellin’, he’ll shoot up a woman. His master is his will, an’ if his will say-soes “Kill” he’ll kill. Like fangy animals. Yay, that was the Kona. Now the Civ’lized got the same needs too, but he sees further. He’ll eat half his food now, yay, but plant half so he won’t go hungry ’morrow - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 07:58:43)
11. He’s angry, he’ll stop’n’ think why so he won’t get angry next time. He’s swellin’, well, he’s got sisses an’ daughters what need respectin’ so he’ll respect his bros’ sisses an’ daughters. His will is his slave, an’ if his will say-soes, “Don’t!” he won’t, nay. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 07:59:19)
12. So, I asked ’gain, is it better to be savage’n to be Civ’lized? List’n, savages an’ Civ’lizeds ain’t divvied by tribes or b’liefs or mountain ranges, nay, ev’ry human is both, yay. Old Uns’d got the Smart o’ gods but the savagery - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 07:59:50)
13. o’ jackals an’ that’s what tripped the Fall. Some savages what I knowed got a beautsome Civ’lized heart beatin’ in their ribs. Maybe some Kona. Not ’nuff to say-so their hole tribe, but who knows one day? One day. “One day” was only a flea o’ hope for us. Yay, I mem’ry Meronym sayin’, but fleas ain’t easy to rid - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 08:00:14)
14. Every conurb, my guide answered, has a chemical toilet where the city’s unwanted human waste disintegrates quietly, but not quite invisibly. It motivates the downstrata: “Work, spend, work,” say slums like Huamdonggil, “or you, too, will end your life here. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 08:25:32)
15. Meticulous brains will overlook the simple - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 08:52:51)
16. anyone over sixty—commit two offenses just by existing. One is Lack of Velocity. We drive too slowly, walk too slowly, talk too slowly. The world will do business with dictators, perverts, and drug barons of all stripes, but being slowed down it cannot abide. Our second offence is being Everyman’s memento mori. The world can only get comfy in shiny-eyed denial if we are out of sight.” - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 14:58:14)
17. Exposition:

- the workings of the actual past + the virtual past may be illustrated by an event well known to collective history, such as the sinking of the Titanic. The disaster as it actually occurred descends into obscurity as its eyewitnesses die off, documents perish + the wreck of the ship dissolves in its Atlantic grave. Yet a virtual sinking of the Titanic, created from reworked memories, papers, hearsay, fiction—in short, belief—grows ever “truer.” The actual past is brittle, ever-dimming + ever more problematic to access + reconstruct: in contrast, the virtual past is malleable, ever-brightening + ever more difficult to circumvent/expose as fraudulent.

- The present presses the virtual past into its own service, to lend credence to its mythologies + legitimacy to the imposition of will. Power seeks + is the right to landscape” the virtual past. (He who pays the historian calls the tune)

- Symmetry demands an actual + virtual future, too. We imagine how next week, next year, or 2225 will shape up—a virtual future, constructed by wishes, prophecies + daydreams. This virtual future may influence the actual future, as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, but the actual future will eclipse our virtual one as surely as tomorrow eclipses today. Like Utopia, the actual future + the actual past exist only in the hazy distance, where they are no good to anyone.

- Q: Is there a meaningful distinction between one simulacrum of smoke, mirrors + shadows—the actual past—from another such simulacrum—the actual future?

- One model of time: an infinite matryoshka doll of painted moments, each “shell” (the present) encased inside a nest of “shells” (previous presents) I call the actual past but which we perceive as the virtual past. The doll of “now” likewise encases a nest of presents yet to be, which I call the actual future but which we perceive as the virtual future - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-10 16:15:40)

18. Another war is always coming, Robert. They are never properly extinguished. What sparks wars? The will to power, the backbone of human nature. The threat of violence, the fear of violence, or actual violence is the instrument of this dreadful will. You can see the will to power in bedrooms, kitchens, factories, unions, and the borders of states. Listen to this and remember it. The nation-state is merely human nature inflated to monstrous proportions. QED, nations are entities whose laws are written by violence. Thus it ever was, so ever shall it be. War, Robert, is one of humanity’s two eternal companions.” - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-12 05:48:34)
19. Anticipating the end of the world is humanity’s oldest pastime - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-12 08:19:12)
20. Boundaries between noise and sound are conventions, I see now. All boundaries are conventions, national ones too. One may transcend any convention, if only one can first conceive of doing so - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-12 09:17:41)
21. An idea of Father Upward’s, at the Tahitian Mission. You must understand, sir, your typical Polynesian spurns industry because he’s got no reason to value money. ‘If I hungry,’ says he, ‘I go pick me some, or catch me some. If I cold, I tell woman, “Weave!’ “Idle hands, Mr. Ewing, & we both know what work the Devil finds for them. But by instilling in the slothful so-an’-sos a gentle craving for this harmless leaf, we give him an incentive to earn money, so he can buy his baccy—not liquor, mind, just baccy—from the Mission trading post. Ingenious, wouldn’t you say?” How could I disagree? - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 02:08:03)
22. Aha!’ you will ask, yes, ‘But why us Aryans? Why not the Unipeds of Ur or the Mandrakes of Mauritius?’ Because, Preacher, of all the world’s races, our love—or rather our rapacity—for treasure, gold, spices & dominion, oh, most of all, sweet dominion, is the keenest, the hungriest, the most unscrupulous! This rapacity, yes, powers our Progress - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 04:13:29)
23. Why tinker with the plain truth that we hurry the darker races to their graves in order to take their land & its riches? Wolves don’t sit in their caves, concocting crapulous theories of race to justify devouring a flock of sheep! “Intellectual courage”? True “intellectual courage” is to dispense with these fig leaves & admit all peoples are predatory, but White predators, with our deadly duet of disease dust & firearms, are examplars of predacity par excellence, & what of it?’ ” - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 04:15:18)
24. Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:10:25)
25. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief. Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boerhaaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things? Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:12:31)
26. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature? - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:12:50)
27. If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably - such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:13:41)
28. A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:14:14)
29. I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere. - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:14:39)
30. He who would do battle with the many-headed hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!” Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops? - (Highlighted on : 2013-01-13 05:16:23)