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" The time and space in which I have been working on this cosmopolitan project have convinced me that the disparity between the ideal of cosmopolitan theology and the current sociopolitical configuration of hospitality, welcoming others, unconditional forgiveness, is itself a _prophetic call_ to which we all have to respond––as humans, as person of faith. The _real_ is always about calculation and conditionality, whereas the _ideal_ of cosmopolitan theology is about incalculability, unconditionality, and planetarity of the _world-as-it-ought-to-be_. Therefore, the disparity between the reality and the ideality is not a space for despair but a space where one's sense of prophetic call_ and passion for _the impossible_ must come in. "
― Namsoon Kang , Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World
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" The cliche about prison life is that I am actually integrated into it, ruined by it, when my accommodation to it is so overwhelming that I can no longer stand or even imagine freedom, life outside prison, so that my release brings about a total psychic breakdown, or at least gives rise to a longing for the lost safety of prison life. The actual dialectic of prison life, however, is somewhat more refined. Prison in effect destroys me, attains a total hold over me, precisely when I do not fully consent to the fact that I am in prison but maintain a kind of inner distance towards it, stick to the illusion that ‘real life is elsewhere’ and indulge all the time in daydreaming about life outside, about nice things that are waiting for me after my release or escape. I thereby get caught in the vicious cycle of fantasy, so that when, eventually, I am released, the grotesque discord between fantasy and reality breaks me down. The only true solution is therefore fully to accept the rules of prison life and then, within the universe governed by these rules, to work out a way to beat them. In short, inner distance and daydreaming about Life Elsewhere in effect enchain me to prison, whereas full acceptance of the fact that I am really there, bound by prison rules, opens up a space for true hope. "
― Slavoj Žižek
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" It was easy to conjure him up this morning, when everything was quiet and still. A little, ginger-bearded man; she had been taller than him by half a head. She had never felt the slightest physical attraction towards him. 'What was love, after all?' thought Parminder, as a gentle breeze ruffled the tall hedge of leyland cypresses that enclosed the Jawandas’ big
back lawn. Was it love when somebody filled a space in your life that yawned inside you, once they had gone?
'I did love laughing', thought Parminder. 'I really miss laughing.'
And it was the memory of laughter that, at last, made the tears flow from her eyes. They trickled down her nose and into her coffee, where they made little bullet
holes, swiftly erased. She was crying because she never seemed to laugh any
more (...). "
― J.K. Rowling , The Casual Vacancy