Quick bookish update

I've made 3 new additions yesterday during my Quebec city one day visit. The catcher in the rye by J.D. Salinger, Animal farm by George Orwell and The road by Cormac McCarthy.

The catcher in the rye was on my "to buy list" for quite some times. A book so claimed, with all the controversy around it was sure to draw my attention. I was planning to get it from Amazon the next time I would place an order but when I saw a copy in the small English book section of Renaud Bray I couldn't help myself. Luckily for me, I paid the same price I would on Amazon. 

A few weeks ago I was drinking a beer with a friend after my first golf practice of the year at a driving range near where I live and we talked about books. He went to a private high school and he told me that he loved most of the mandatory reads he had. He talked much more of the Animal Farm than the others and it caught my interest. For 9$ it was an easy grab for me. The book's about communism and the abuse of political power and I think using animals to picture it was very clever. My hopes are, beyond the caricature of the fear of communism, to see absurd contradictions with the animal world and ours.

As for The road, I won't lie to you. I had no intention of buying or reading it before seeing it on the book display. It was among James Patterson, Nora Roberts and Dan Brown's books. Although I know little of McCarthy (shame on me), I've heard his name enough to have the desire of reading him one day. I didn't see the movie made from this book and I'm glad I didn't. For some unknown reasons I don't see books that I saw the movie with the same appetite for reading it. My friend from Dead end follies praise a lot about Lehane's Mystic River and Palahniuk's Fight Club and believe me I have Ben's opinion in high esteem. But I can't understand why I always have this strange feeling about the books that I've seen the movie. My reason suggest me books that are good enough to be brought to the big screen are certainly good enough to read but I don't know, it's not working for me. I always choose something else over the two books I just mentioned. I know it's stupid but it is the way it is. I guess I've heard too much the proverbial "but the book is so much better" that I fear I would end up saying it too because it's probably and arguably true 99% (if not 100%) of the time. As for The road, I simply took it impulsively because it was McCarthy's. I'm glad to read this morning that the book was such a success even if the Pulitzer prize award winner tag on the cover had provided a hint it was. I hope The road is a good choice for my first McCarthy.     

Death

What a great subject. I'm surprised I didn't write about it before today. The end of one's life is, in our culture, something considered mostly negative. At least it is for those who still live. We cry those who leave our world. We created many mechanisms, through spirituality and beliefs, to get over our losses. 

I know you might not like what I will say, but we are most of the time self-centered. To mourn is somehow an expression of this self-centerness. However, when you think about death. It's like the end of a book. When you start reading, you know the story will come to an end and that's the purpose of reading it. To get through it, enjoy it and know its end. Whatever it's a sad, happy, short, long, filled or empty story. You share something with the "author" while "reading" it. That's life.

I know some will say that you can't compare a life with a book. The relation you create with a book isn't as strong as a relation with a living person. I agree with you. The level of emotions is more likely to be more important. So when you finish a book, you can't feel the same in comparaison when someone's story ends. And I haven't talked about how it ends. Sometimes the circumstances are awful. Where I live, in the province of Quebec, we had 3 horror story lately. There is this cardiologist who stabbed his two children because his wife was cheating on him. This couple who beat a 4 years old boy to death. And this 2 months old baby who's cryings, because her arm was broken, drove his father crazy enough to shake her to death. 

So you might think it is unfair for them. To have their lives taken away like this. Unfair also for those who loved them. And you are damn right. It is unfair. That's the whole idea about death. When granted the privilege of life, nature never gave any living creature a waranty. For many reasons, we feel and live otherwise. Like is a right the society or even life itself  owe to you. That every man should live until his body can't. The cold truth is it will never be this way. So I question the spirit of our cultural relation with death.

I think we feel sad about death, because we are rarely prepared for it. We don't live like the next chapter, the next page might be the last and we don't expect others to live also like that. For this reason, I think we don't respect death enough. It is inevitable, whenever it happens at 90 or 30 or 9 or 3. It will happen. I know it's hard to not expect to live X years and do whatever we want to do with our lives, but we live like this because we forgot our lives has no warranties. Taking it for granted is, to me, disrespectful of what nature is : unfair.

I want you to try to disconnect with our cultural relation with death and think about it. Would it be possible to praise death like we praise life? Would we have more respect in life if we respect death the way it should be? I'm asking this because I'm wondering if the lives of the kids in the three stories above would have been taken away from them if we had more respect and a more "happy" relation with death. Because they died as some sort of punishment for really bad reasons. Death shouldn't be a punishment. It's the end of a book. It's sometimes the best part. It is inevitable and it should be as important as life is whenever it happens before having white hairs.         

You’re good. Get better. Stop asking for things.

On Monday, I wanted to write a post about how my weekend went and how miserably I failed to get this wished idea to get a new spark into my kind of boring life. Halfway into explaining why I didn't reach my goal I stopped to wonder a few minutes about what I was about to do and I deleted what I wrote. For those who knows me, and how I use my wisdom to disarm many "explosive" situations, you'll probably find this funny.

When I left the office on Friday morning. I didn't notice what kind of pressure I put myself on. I thought I needed a new start. Which is still true by the way. And I built theses unecessary walls around it. It had to happen during this weekend. Not on Monday, not on Tuesday. I gave myself Saturday and Sunday to achieve that. That's completly absurd. Why on earth would I believed I needed this goal, to find a new beginning, done in two days?

Well, I didn't really need it. I wanted it though. And that's two completly different things. Normally, I'm quite able to discern what I want from what I need but this time I didn't and that's exactly why I failed to reach the goal I set for myself.

Quite frankly, I didn't realized it until this very morning. When I was writting that post about my failure on Monday. I knew I was wrong writting it. That's why I stopped and never published it. Today, I had my answer. I woke up early. 3h30 AM. With the intention of going to work before everyone else. ( I often do that, I love when the office is cold, empty and noiseless. I usually have a cup of tea and slowly start working. I'm very productive early in the morning ) But this morning, I didn't went to work right after taking a shower. I decided to entertain myself a little before going. 

So I watched an episode of Mad Men. I love this show but I don't really want to discuss about it on my blog. I just want to share with you a sentence Don Draper said to Peggy Olsen : "You’re good. Get better. Stop asking for things." 

I'm taking voluntarily it out of context because theses words. In the show, they are very direct, precise. They mean what they mean word for word. But these resonated into my head like Don was actually talking to me in my own context. 

When we think about it. It's in complete contradiction with what I usually praise. I'm always talking about taking action. About identifying opportunities to take it, in many things we see as negative, bad. Yet, I find it very clever to "stop asking for things". 

Let me explain, I feel I went into this weekend like I was asking to "life" to give me something, an idea for a new beginning. Like "life" owed it me. Like I diserved it. I was so wrong.

I'm good, I'll get better, I'll stop asking for things and it will happen. I'll have all the beginnings I want and need.

I can't help myself for feeling dumb to went through this whole process to end up with something so simple and basic that anyone can brag that's what they always do.

Thanks Don. 

 

Personal thoughts to think over the weekend.

This weekend. I'm calling it off. I mean, no computer, no socialization of any kind, or the least possible. It'll be me alone with me. I'll be reading, thinking, walking, running. I'm experiencing strange feelings lately. I feel that void inside that need to be fill. I remember something I use to talk about with an old friend of mine. It was about beginnings and endings. 

I don't remember if I blogged about this already but it goes like this. Our lives are a subsequence of overlapping beginnings and endings. In between is the boring part. You are usually more thrilled with Beginnings. Endings are either a relief or a loss but they always make room for new beginnings. So the less time you spent in between the more fun, valuable, meaningful your life may be. 

That's why events like having kids, buying an house, vacations, or whatever is a new beginning, is like a boost for your life, or your couple according to theses examples. If you get stuck too much in between, then you'll get bored. And when you get bored you tend to feel different about the same things that were thrilling when they were "beginnings". 

I think that defines the void I'm feeling right now. I'm stuck in between. The problem is, I'm not quite sure of what I want as a new beginning. Well that's not true. It would be more acurate to say there's nothing at reach that comes into my mind that I would like to start. I also haven't realized yet if I need to end something to make room for a new thing in my life. 

These are the questions I hope my weekend will help me elude. It's an interresting exercice to do. I did it a few times in the last couple of years and it was always a rewardful experience. I know most people don't feel the need to do this because they feel, most time, overwhelmed with their occupations. Like it's full, no room for anything. I'm not judging. It's fine if they feel happy about it. 

But as I rejected the contemporary way of living ( and ironically working in a very contemporary field of expertise ). It became a very important issue to me to find meaningful things to do with my life. I'm no more ( or less ) interrested in accumulating belongings, spending hours on irreleavant entertainment or anything that don't enhance myself on some level. I find it challenging but I'm still asking myself what's the big picture of doing all this. 

Anyhow, that's what I found to be the best way to change into someone who's looking to elevate his mind and having more respect in his body ( than I had before ).