Ha Such Indifference Quotes

We have an hour before we have to leave," Cray said. "So I thought I might tell you a little about myself. I thought it might pass the time."
"I'm not really all that interested," Alex said. ~ Anthony Horowitz

To live a hard life was to make solid and impregnable every way in, until no openings remained and the soul hid in darkness, and no one else could hear its screams, its railing at injustice, its long, agonizing stretches of sadness. Hardness without created hardness within.

Sadness was, she well knew, not something that could be cured. It was not, in fact, a failing, not a flaw, not an illness of spirit. Sadness was never without reason, and to assert that it marked some kind of dysfunction did little more than prove ignorance or, worse, cowardly evasiveness in the one making the assertion. As if happiness was the only legitimate way of being. As if those failing at it needed to be locked away, made soporific with medications; as if the causes of sadness were merely traps and pitfalls in the proper climb to blissful contentment, things to be edged round or bridged, or leapt across on wings of false elation.

Scillara knew better. She had faced her own sadness often enough. Even when she discovered her first means of escaping it, in durhang, she'd known that such an escape was simply a flight from feelings that existed legitimately. She'd just been unable to permit herself any sympathy for such feelings, because to do so was to surrender to their truth.

Sadness belonged. As rightful as joy, love, grief and fear. All conditions of being.

Too often people mistook the sadness in others for self-pity, and in so doing revealed their own ha ~ Steven Erikson

Yes, such has been my lot since childhood. Everyone read signs of non-existent evil traits in my features. But since they were expected to be there, they did make their appearance. Because I was reserved, they said I was sly, so I grew reticent. I was keenly aware of good and evil, but instead of being indulged I was insulted and so I became spiteful. I was sulky while other children were merry and talkative, but though I felt superior to them I was considered inferior. So I grew envious. I was ready to love the whole world, but no one understood me, and I learned to hate. My cheerless youth passed in conflict with myself and society, and fearing ridicule I buried my finest feelings deep in my heart, and there they died. I spoke the truth, but nobody believed me, so I began to practice duplicity. Having come to know society and its mainsprings, I became versed in the art of living and saw how others were happy without that proficiency, enjoying for free the favors I had so painfully striven for. It was then that despair was born in my heart--not the despair that is cured with a pistol, but a cold, impotent desperation, concealed under a polite exterior and a good-natured smile. I became a moral cripple; I had lost one half of my soul, for it had shriveled, dried up and died, and I had cut it off and cast it away, while the other half stirred and lived, adapted to serve every comer. No one noticed this, because no one suspected there had been another half. Now, however, you ha ~ Mikhail Lermontov

So, boy, how does it feel to be pouring out a never-ending stream of--?"
"Stop that!" I scowled at my brothers as I shooed them away from Milo. "How can you make such jokes in front of him?"
"To be honest, the only thing in front of him right now is the sea and the supper he ate three days ago." Castor's grin got wider.
Polydeuces was contrite. "We mean well, Helen. We're only trying to make him laugh. A good laugh might take his mind off being so ill."
"It's a shame we're bound straight for Corinth," the old sailor said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Since nothing else seems to be working for this lad, could be that a short rest on dry land would steady his stomach."
"You think we'd ever be able to get him back on board afterward?" Castor asked.
The sailor shrugged. "What would he have to say about it? He's your slave, isn't he?"
"He's our sister's slave, or was," Castor replied. "She freed him as soon as she bought him."
"And still he came onto this ship with you, sick as seafaring makes him?"
"This is his first voyage," I said, stooping beside Milo to place one arm protectively around him. "He didn't know he'd get sick."
"Oh, he'd have come along even if he'd known that a sea monster was waiting to gobble him up," Castor said, with another of those annoying, conspiratorial winks to his twin. "Anything rather than be separated from you, little sister."
Polydeuces eagerly took up his brother's game. "That's true," he ha ~ Esther M. Friesner

If you look at things as they are, there does not seem to be a code either of man or of God on which one can pattern one's conduct. Wrong triumphs over right as much as right over wrong. Sometimes its triumphs are greater. What happens ultimately, you do not know. In such circumstances what can you do but cultivate an utter indifference to all values? Nothing matters. Nothing whatever ... ~ Khushwant Singh

Several times when we tried to talk about our future, she told me she had the feeling that now my last great chance was presenting itself, and that I must not miss it. Did she really just mean the paralyzing compromises we had gotten ensnared in, out of indifference or false respect, and which now no longer bound us because a higher power had severed them? Or did she mean something beyond these fetters, which, after all, are only fetters if they are experienced as such and perhaps are beneficent fetters because they deceive us about the time spent waiting for the hour of fulfillment - did Misi also mean that the terrible desert of preparation had been traversed? ~ Hans Erich Nossack

Such is their mutual antipathy that friends have observed that Diana finds her husband's very presence upsetting and disturbing. He in turn views his wife with indifference tinged with dislike. When a Sunday newspaper reported how the Prince had pointedly ignored her at a concert at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the Queen Mother's 90th birthday, she remarked to friends that she found their surprise rather odd. "He ignores me everywhere and has done for a long time. He just dismisses me." She would, for example, never contemplate making any input into any of his special interests such as architecture, the environment or agriculture. Painful experience tells her that any suggestions would be treated with ill-disguised contempt. "He makes her feel intellectually insecure and inferior and constantly reinforces that message," notes a close friend. When Charles took his wife to see A Woman of No Importance when he celebrated his 43rd birthday, the irony was not lost on her friends. ~ Andrew Morton

Wait a minute," Hadrian said. "Was it a beat-up brown leather notebook?
About this big?" He gestured with his hands.
"Yes," the Patriarch said.
Arista looked back and forth between them. "How do you know that?"
"I know it because I have lived in the Crown Tower," the Patriarch
said.
"And you?" Arista looked at Hadrian, who hesitated.
"Ha-ha! Of course, of course. I knew it!" Cosmos DeLur chuckled and
clapped his hands together in single applause while smiling at Hadrian.
"Such a wonderfully delightful rumor as that had to be true. That is
an exquisite accomplishment."
"You stole it?" Arista asked.
"Yes, he did," the Patriarch declared.
"Actually," Hadrian said, "Royce and I did, but we put it back the next night. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Ricardo's theory is absolutely right-within its narrow confines. His theory correctly says that, accepting their current levels of technology as given, it is better for countries to specialize in things that they are relatively better at. One cannot argue with that.

His theory fails when a country wants to acquire more advanced technologies so that it can do more difficult things that few others can do- that is, when it wants to develop its economy. It takes time and experience to absorb new technologies, so technologically backward producers need a period of protection from international competition during this period of learning. Such protection is costly, because the country is giving up the chance to import better and cheaper products. However, it is a price that has to be paid if it wants to develop advanced industries. Ricardo's theory is, thus seen, for those who accept the status quo but not for those who want to change it. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

"Ha! ha! ha! But after all, if you like, in reality there is not such thing as choice," you will interrupt with a laugh. "Science has even now succeeded in analysing man to such an extent that we know already that choice and what is called freedom of will are nothing other than--"

Wait, gentlemen, I meant to begin with that myself. I admit I was even frightened. I was just going to shout that after all the devil only knows what choice depends on, and that perhaps that is a very good thing, but I remembered the teaching of science-- and pulled myself up. And here you have begun to speak. After all, really, well, if someday they truly discover a formula for all our desires and caprices-- that is, an explanations of what they depend upon, by what laws they arise, just how they develop, what they are aiming at in one case or another and so on, and so on, that is, a real mathematical formula-- then, after all, man would most likely at once stop to feel desire, indeed, he will be most certain to. For who would want to choose by rule? Besides, he will at once be transformed from a human being into an organ stop or something of the sort; for what is a man without desire, without free will and without choice, if not a stop in an organ? What do you think? Let us consider the probability-- can such a thing happen or not? ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Incredulity and indifference were her only reaction: incredulity, because she could not conceive of what would bring human beings to such a state - indifference, because she could not regard those who reached it, as human any longer. ~ Ayn Rand

Though she was intrigued by someone like Claude, the love affairs of a real lesbian like Petit were a matter of complete indifference to Mickey. It seemed to me that our indifference, the indifference of the 'normal' world, made the life of such women even more tragic. For they suffered from their loves, like any other woman, but without the balm of sympathy and understanding. ~ Tereska Torres

It is difficult to persuade me that the story of the Prodigal Son is not the legend of one who didn't want to be loved. When he was a child everyone in the house loved him. He grew up knowing nothing different and, being a child, he grew accustomed to their tenderness of heart. But once he became a youth he wanted to cast all that aside. He wouldn't have been able to say it, but even when he spent the whole day wandering around outdoors he didn't want the dogs with him ever again because they loved him as well; because looking in their eyes he could read watchfulness, sympathy, expectation, and concern; because when they were with him there was nothing he could do that didn't either delight them or hurt their feelings. But what he was aiming for at the time was that indifference of heart which early in the morning out in the fields sometimes seized him inwardly and with such purity that he would start to run in order to leave himself no time or breath to be more than a weightless moment in the morning's returning consciousness. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

The truth was that, with the Duchess de Luxembourg, with Mme de Morienval, Mme de Saint-Euverte and any number of others, the features that made their faces distinctive were a big red nose next to a hare-lip, or two wrinkled cheeks and a faint moustache. Such features cast their own spell well enough since, as a merely conventional form of handwriting, they enabled one to read a famous and impressive name; but ultimately they also gave rise to the notion that ugliness was somehow aristocratic, that it was a matter of indifference that the face of a grand lady should be beautiful, provided that it was distinguished. ~ Marcel Proust

There are nations that resist, voices that attempt to diminish the urgency or dismiss the science, or declare, either in word or indifference, that this is not our problem to solve. Well, let me tell you, it is our problem to solve ... To the reticent nations, including the United States, I say this: There is such a thing as a global conscience. ~ Paul Martin

In short, not only was it surprising to be greeted in person with such enthusiastic words, but it was doubly surprising when the person reciting these words displayed the same kind of disengagement as, say, the checkout clerk who utters the words 'Have a nice day' while her expression indicates that it's really a matter of total indifference to her whether you drop dead in the parking lot outside ten seconds from now. ~ David Foster Wallace

We don't need the money that badly," my mother said. "According to my sisters, we do." I slid the photograph with dollar signs toward her. Mom swung toward Grandma Frida. "Mom!" Grandma Frida's eyes got really big. "What? Don't look at me!" "You started this." Ha! Attack deflected and redirected. "I did no such thing. I'm innocent. You always blame me for everything." "You started it and you encouraged it. Now look, she's taking on murders because you're guilt-tripping her to put food on the table. And what kind of message does this send?" "A true-love kind of message." Grandma Frida grinned. ~ Ilona Andrews

Such bureaucrats can neither be hurried in their deliberations nor made to see common sense. Indeed, the very absurdity or pedantry of these deliberations is for them the guarantee of their own fair-mindedness, impartiality, and disinterest. To treat all people with equal contempt and indifference is the bureaucrat's idea of equity. ~ Theodore Dalrymple

BEAUTY


I was charged with finding Beauty.
The order whispered as I slept.
A voice said it was my duty.
Then quietly it wept.


Filled with purpose, I set out.
I was honored with my quest.
In my mind there was no doubt
I was up to this great test.

In my garden I stopped first.
My roses were in bloom.
Their bright red glory burst
With others mixed on Nature's loom.

Then a lady drew my gaze.
She was gliding o'er the grass.
Her features would gods amaze.
I sighed deep and let her pass.

A cathedral's spire reached to the sky,
Man-made wonder to behold.
No sight more pleasing to the eye
Than such a work both grand and bold.

I came upon a mighty mountain,
Snowcap glistening against blue sky.
My eyes were drinking from beauty's fountain.
Yet I knew I could do better with another try.

My journey lengthened.
I crossed the earth.
My will strengthened.
To place beauty's birth.

Witness I was to the wonders
Of beauty's many layers.
Fiery sunsets, tropic thunders,
Children at their prayers.

But each time I thought me near
To beauty's absolute,
Something better would appear
Even closer to the root.

I wandered thus for many years.
Despaired to ever reach my goal.
I often found myself in tears.
I ha ~ Carl Johnson

She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting. Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances. He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Has he wished ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time; he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him the indepencence which alone had been wanting. ~ Jane Austen

Listen, I am such a nerd. I'm not one of those girls that goes, 'Ha, ha, hee, hee. I'm a nerd.' No, no, no - my brain mentality is the same as a 12-year-old little boy. The video games that I play, the things that I like to watch - I'm a Trekkie. ~ Mila Kunis

A Roman came to Rabbi Gimzo the Water Carrier, and asked, "What is this study of the law that you Jews engage in?" and Gimzo replied, "I shall explain. There were two men on a roof, and they climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty. The other's not. Which one washed his face?" The Roman said, "That's easy, the sooty one, of course." Gimzo said, "No. The man without the soot looked at his friend, saw that the man's face was dirty, assumed that his was too, and washed it." Cried the Roman, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law. Sound reasoning." But Gimzo said, "You foolish man, you don't understand. Let me explain again. Two men on a roof. They climb down a chimney. One's face is sooty, the other's not. Which one washes?" The Roman said, "As you just explained, the man without the soot." Gimzo cried,"No, you foolish one! There was a mirror on the wall and the man with the dirty face saw how sooty it was and washed it." The Roman said, "Ah ha! So that's the study of law! Conforming to the logical." But Rabbi Gimzo said, "No, you foolish one. Two men climbed down the chimney. One's face became sooty? The other's not? That's impossible. You're wasting my time with such a proposition." And the Roman said, "So that's the law! Common sense." And Gimzo said, "You foolish man! Of course it was possible. When the first man climbed down the chimney he brushed the soot away. So the man who followed found none to mar him." And the Roman cried, "That's brilliant, Rabbi Gimzo. Law is ~ James A. Michener

Peppermint Whiskey? Hell, reindeer, keep up this niceness and I may have to take ya back home with us."
I lean close to him and whisper loudly, "You've already got a reindeer. You couldn't handle two of us."
He pours himself a shot before responding.
"Ha! You obviously didn't know my rep in the North Pole before Randy or you'd never make such a ludicrous statement. ~ Candi Kay

Here in the north each night is a whole winter long. Yet the place is fair enough, doubt it not! Thou shalt see sights here such as thou hast not seen in the halls of the English king. We shall be together as sisters whilst thou bidest with me; we shall go down to the sea when the storm begins once more; thou shalt see the billows rushing upon the land like wild, white-maned horses - and then the whales far out in the offing! They dash one against another like steel-clad knights! Ha, what joy to be a witching-wife and ride on the whale's back - to speed before the skiff, and wake the storm, and lure men to the deeps with lovely songs of sorcery! ~ Henrik Ibsen

It was funny, Grey thought. Not funny ha-ha, but funny strange, the whole idea of time. He'd thought it was one thing but it was actually another. It wasn't a line but a circle, and even more; it was a circle made of circles made of circles, each lying on top of the other, so that every moment was next to every other moment, all at once. And once you knew this you couldn't unknow it. Such as now the way he could see events as they were about to unfold, as if they'd already happened, because in a way they had. ~ Justin Cronin

In our own day anonymity has acquired a far more pregnant significance than is perhaps realized: it has an almost epigrammatic significance. People not only write anonymously, they sign their anonymous works: they even talk anonymously...Nowadays one can talk with any one, and it must be admitted that people's opinions are exceedingly sensible, yet the conversation leaves one with the impression of having talked to an anonymity. The same person will say the most contradictory things and, with the utmost calm, make a remark, which coming from him is a bitter satire on his own life. The remark itself may be sensible enough, and of the kind that sounds well at a meeting, and may serve in a discussion preliminary to coming to a decision, in much the same way that paper is made out of rags. But all these opinions put together do not make one human, personal opinion such as you may hear from quite a simple man who talks about very little but really does talk. People's remarks are so objective, so all all-inclusive, that it is a matter of complete indifference who expresses them, and where human speech is concerned that is the same as acting 'on principle'. And so our talk becomes like the public, a pure abstraction. There is no longer any one who knows how to talk, and instead, objective thought produces an atmosphere, an abstract sound, which makes human speech superfluous, just as machinery makes man superfluous. In Germany they even have phrase-books for the use of lovers, and i ~ Søren Kierkegaard

There was presented to him at once and clearly an opportunity for joy--casual, accidental joy, but joy. If he could not manage joy, at least he might have managed the intention of joy, or (if that also were too much) an effort towards the intention of joy. The infinity of-grace could have been contented and invoked by a mere mental refusal of anything but such an effort. He knew his duty--he was no fool--he knew that the fantastic recognition would please and amuse the innocent soul of Sir Aston, not so much for himself as in some unselfish way for the honour of history. Such honours meant nothing, but they were part of the absurd dance of the world, and to be enjoyed as such. Wentworth knew he could share that pleasure. He could enjoy; at least he could refuse not to enjoy. He could refuse and reject damnation.

With a perfectly clear, if instantaneous, knowledge of what he did, he rejected joy instead. He instantaneously preferred anger, and at once it came; he invoked envy, and it obliged him. He crushed the paper in a rage, then he tore it open, and looked again and again-there it still was. He knew that his rival had not only succeeded, but succeeded at his own expense; what chance was there of another historical knighthood for years? Till that moment he had never thought of such a thing. The possibility had been created and withdrawn simultaneously, leaving the present fact to mock him. The other possibility--of joy in that present fact--receded as fast. He ha ~ Charles Williams

A fellow told me one about Wembley yesterday," I said, to help on the cheery flow of conversation. "Stop me if you've heard it before. Chap goes up to deaf chap outside the exhibition and says, "Is this Wembley?" "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "Hey?" says deaf chap. "Is this Wembley?" says chap. "No, Thursday," says deaf chap. Ha, ha, I mean, what?"
The merry laughter froze on my lips. Sir Roderick sort of just waggled an eyebrow in my direction and I saw that it was back to the basket for Bertram. I never met a man who had such a knack of making a fellow feel like a waste-product. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Here I would point out, as a symptom equally worthy of notice, the ABSENCE OF FEELING which usually accompanies laughter. It seems as though the comic could not produce its disturbing effect unless it fell, so to say, on the surface of a soul that is thoroughly calm and unruffled. Indifference is its natural environment, for laughter has no greater foe than emotion. I do not mean that we could not laugh at a person who inspires us with pity, for instance, or even with affection, but in such a case we must, for the moment, put our affection out of court and impose silence upon our pity. In a society composed of pure intelligences there would probably be no more tears, though perhaps there would still be laughter; whereas highly emotional souls, in tune and unison with life, in whom every event would be sentimentally prolonged and re-echoed, would neither know nor understand laughter. ~ Henri Bergson

See thou, whatsoever be thy name
whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! Ha! Come forth and fight with me! ~ Leonid Andreyev

It.
Such is the perversity of human nature that what we have in abundance-our work, our possessions, and the beauty of our surroundings-we take for granted and learn to ignore, so that we are often paralyzed by boredom, indifference, and ingratitude. ~ Gene Edward Veith Jr.

In some universes, all possible pasts funnel towards a single fixed ending, Ω.

It you are of millenarian bent, you might call Ω Armageddon, If you are of grammatical bent, you might call it punctuation on a cosmological scale.

If you are a philosopher in such a universe, you might call Ω inevitable. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

I never suspected you had a sense of humor," she mused aloud, studying his face as if he were a fascinating puzzle to be figured out. "See? Hardly ten minutes into the night and I am already learning fabulous things about you."
"Imagine what will happen in an hour," he said.
"That sounded suspiciously liberal to me," she rejoined slyly, reaching to wind her arms around his neck. "Did I mention that you look like you just stepped off a pirate ship? This outfit is very . . . roguish."
"Roguish?"
"'Roguish' is a word from the English language," she lectured. "It means . . . to be like a rogue. In your case, to be in the style of a rogue. Roguish."
"I know what it means, Neliss. I do not believe I have ever heard myself described in such a way before. I shall have to take your word on that." He reached up to push back some of the heavy fall of her hair. "You always wear dresses like this, and almost never bind your hair. Do not take this as a complaint, but I was wondering why that is."
"I like dresses. I never quite took to the idea of skirts above the ankle. I guess I am an old-fashioned eighteenth-century girl."
"I see. And just when, exactly, should I begin to look for those pigs that will be flying by?"
"You know, you sit there and accuse me of having a smart mouth?"
"Well, you were wondering what part of you was going to show up in me," he rejoined.
"Oh. Ha ha. Your stellar wit has charmed me straight to my toes," was her dr ~ Jacquelyn Frank

Tis the grand stupidity of our kind, dear Cutter, to see all the errors of our ways, yet find in ourselves the inability to do anything about them. We sit, dumbfounded by despair, and for all our ingenuity, our perceptivity, for all our extraordinary capacity to see the truth of things, we hunker down like snails in a flood, sucked tight to our precious pebble, fearing the moment is is dislodged beneath us. Until that terrible calamity, we do nothing but cling.
"Can you even imagine a world where all crimes are punished? Where justice is truly blind and holds out no hands happy to yield to the weight of coin and influence? Where one takes responsibility for his or her mistakes, acts of negligence, the deadly consequences of indifference or laziness? Nay, instead we slip and duck, dance and dodge, dance the dodge slip duck dance, feet ablur. Ourselves transformed into shadows that flit in chaotic discord. We are indeed masters of evasion--no doubt originally a survival trait, at least in the physical sense, but to have such instincts applied to the soul is perhaps our most egregious crime against morality. What we will do so that we may continue living with ourselves. In this we might assert that a survival trait can ultimately prove its own antithesis, and in the cancelling out thereof, why, we are left with the blank, dull, vacuous expression that Kruppe sees before him."
~Kruppe, ~ Steven Erikson

But when society is the name for such hollow gentlemen and ladies ... and when its breeding is professed indifference to everything that can advance or can retard mankind, I think we must have lost ourselves in that same Desert of Sahara, and had better find the way out. ~ Charles Dickens

It is hard to believe, but the phrase 'workshop of the world' was originally coined for Britain, which today, according to Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, has 'no industry'. Having successfully launched the Industrial Revolution before other countries, Britain became such a dominant industrial power by the mid nineteenth century that it felt confident enough to completely liberalize its trade (see Thing 7). In 1860, it produced 20 per cent of world manufacturing output. In 1870, it accounted for 46 per cent of world trade in manufactured goods. The current Chinese share in world exports is only around 17 per cent (as of 2007), even though 'everything' seems to be made in China, so you can imagine the extent of British dominance then. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

Do you not feel that sometimes in life one's friendships begin by antipathy - sometimes by indifference - and sometimes by that sudden magnetism of sympathy as if in some former life we had been very near and dear, and were only picking up the threads again, and to such two souls there is no feeling that they are strangers. ~ Elinor Glyn

One result for many people is a tendency to think that power comes from cruelty or indifference. But, in reality such things are not powerful, because cruelty and indifference emerge not from a self that is in posession of itself but from a self that is imprisoned in its own inner drama ~ Robert Karen

Overcoming the myth that there is such a thing as an objectively defined 'free market' is the first step towards understanding capitalism. ~ Ha-Joon Chang

People often seem surprised that I choose to write science fiction and fantasy - I think they expect a history professor to write historical fiction, or literary fiction, associating academia with the kinds of novels that academic lit critics prefer. But I feel that speculative fiction, especially science fiction and fantasy, is a lot more like the pre-modern literature I spend most of my time studying than most modern literature is. Ursula Le Guin has described speculative fiction authors as "realists of a larger reality" because we imagine other ways of being, alternatives to how people live now, different worlds, and raise questions about hope and change and possibilities that different worlds contain.

....

Writing for a more distant audience, authors tended to be speculative, using exotic perspectives, fantastic creatures, imaginary lands, allegories, prophecies, stories within stories, techniques which, like science fiction and fantasy, use alternatives rather than one reality in order to ask questions, not about the way things are, but about plural ways things have been and could be. Such works have an empathy across time, expecting and welcoming an audience as alien as the other worlds that they describe. When I read Voltaire responding to Francis Bacon, responding to Petrarch, responding to Boethius, responding to Seneca, responding to Plutarch, I want to respond to them too, to pass it on. So it makes sense to me to answer in the genre people ha ~ Ada Palmer

According to Shaivism, anupaya may also be reached by entering into the infinite blissfulness of the Self through the powerful experiences of sensual pleasures. This practice is designed to help the practitioner reach the highest levels by accelerating their progress through the sakta and sambhava upayas. These carefully guarded doctrines of Tantric sadhana are the basis for certain practices, like the use of the five makaras (hrdaya) mentioned earlier. The experience of a powerful sensual pleasure quickly removes a person's dullness or indifference. It awakens in them the hidden nature and source of blissfulness and starts its inner vibration. Abhinavagupta says that only those people who are awakened to their own inner vitality can truly be said to have a heart (hrdaya). They are known as sahrdaya (connoisseurs). Those uninfluenced by this type of experiences are said to be heartless. In his words:

"It is explained thus - The heart of a person, shedding of its attitude of indifference while listening to the sweet sounds of a song or while feeling the delightful touch of something like sandalpaste, immediately starts a wonderful vibratory movement. (This) is called ananda-sakti and because of its presence the person concerned is considered to have a heart (in their body) (Tantraloka, III.209-10).

People who do not become one (with such blissful experiences), and who do not feel their physical body being merged into it, are said to be heartless because t ~ Balajinnatha Pandita