FB'ers are Fanatical and Barbaric
Step Away from the Light and Other Such Nihilistic Trains of Thought
Sophia: The light can be blinding, can’t it? Everyone rushes toward it, believing it to be truth, yet sometimes it’s merely the glare of conviction too bright to see through.
Diderot: Indeed. The moment certainty hardens into obsession, reason begins to rot. I’ve seen men who claim enlightenment only to slip into the shadows of their own righteousness. One small step from zeal to savagery.
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
— Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Sartre: And yet, the shadow has its uses. To stand free is not to bask in light, but to make meaning in its absence. We inherit the world — its injustices, its ruins — and freedom begins where excuses end.
Thomas: Ha! And when we finally see there’s no going back, we might as well enjoy the blaze. Burn the bridges, watch the flames dance on the water. There’s a kind of poetry in destruction — a fierce joy in letting go.
Sophia: But tell me, Dylan, does your fire warm or consume? The wisdom of burning lies not in the ashes left behind, but in the clarity of what survives.
Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.
— Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)
Thomas: Perhaps both. To destroy is sometimes to reveal — like setting fire to a fog, hoping to glimpse the horizon beyond it.
Diderot: Dangerous thinking, though. The same heat that forges freedom can forge fanaticism. The difference lies in humility — the willingness to doubt one’s own light.
Sartre: Doubt, yes — but not paralysis. Freedom is the act of stepping forward even when meaning flickers. It’s choosing the next move, not because it’s illuminated, but because you will it to be.
When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.
— Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Sophia: So perhaps the wise course is neither to run from the dark nor rush into the light, but to walk between — carrying one’s own small flame.
Thomas: A candle in the wind, then? Better that than a torch in a mob’s hand.
Diderot: Exactly. Civilization depends on such restraint — the choice to think before burning, to question before believing.
Sartre: And in that questioning lies our redemption. Not divine, not predestined — simply human.
Sophia: Then step carefully, my friends. Away from the blinding light, not into darkness, but into awareness — the twilight where wisdom waits.
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