Why was it never good news that put problems into perspective? Why did it always take another set of problems? - Alastair Reynolds

Anxiety is a useful tool: it forces us to make plans. But when too much anxiety freezes us into indecision, it needs checking.

Half of all the great art and literature in existence went unrecognised during the lifetimes of its creators.

Relativity distorted classical expectations in a way that Clavain still did not find entirely intuitive. Slam two objects towards each other, each with individual velocities just below light-speed, and the classical result for their closing velocity would be the sum of their individual speeds: just under twice the speed of light. Yet the true result, confirmed with numbing precision, was that the objects saw each other approach with a combined speed that was still just below the speed of light. Similarly, the relativistic closing velocity for two objects moving towards each other with individual speeds of one-half of light-speed was not light-speed itself, but eight-tenths of it. It was the way the universe was put together, and yet it was not something the human mind had evolved to accept.