Life can show up no other way than that way in which you perceive it.
Just to say "Well, God is dead" in one breath is to say, in another, that nothing means anything. This is the moment of nihilism. Nihilism is the affirmation of meaninglessness.
I have argued that philosophy doesn't begin in wonder or in the fact that things are, it begins in a realization that things are not what they might be. It begins with a sense of a lack, of something missing, and that provokes a series of questions.
It is so ridiculous to limit oneself to one version of the truth.
In relation to the question of hope, I think the only hope we have is hope against hope. We hope for a better world. But of course we can do better than just hope.
If the denial of death is self-hatred, as it is to deny our freedom and live in fear of death (which is to say, to live in a form of bondage), then the acceptance and affirmation of death is indeed a form of self-love. But I'd want to make a distinction between a form of self-love which is essential to what it means to be human, and a narcissism of self-regard, like Rousseau's distinction between amour de soi and amour propre, self-love and pride.
It's complicated. On the one hand we're killer apes, and on the other hand we have this metaphysical longing.
Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears.
I feel there's a power in theatre, but it's an indirect power. It's like the relationship of the sleeper to the unconscious. You discover things you can't afford to countenance in waking life. You can forget them, remember them a day later or not have any idea what they are about.
Companies that do not actively practice, study, and plan for crisis communications - as well, of course, crisis management - are doomed to fail when a crisis befalls them. Crises are, in a word, inevitable, and those macho companies that think, "it can't happen here," or if it does, "I can handle it," will suffer the hardest failures.
Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky.