Tag: reading

A Second Chance

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Lockdown 2.0 is coming. France and German signed up last week. Athens will this week. England will be joining the club in the coming days. Scotland is persevering with it’s tier system instead with no regions currently in tier four and lockdown but it’s likely a watch this space thing. Politically if Scotland’s approach doesn’t work it will have a lasting effect on the Scottish elections in May next year but equally that is a long time in politics. As this most remarkable of years has shown; a lot of the unexpected can happen in a short space of time. Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish First Minister, met with Micheal Gove the other day, along with the leaders of Wales and Northern Ireland to discuss the differing approaches and the potential financial aid necessary. He suggesting the government were listening and would give it some thought. Gove the ultimate in parodies, giving the perfect non-committal politician response. Issues have started to arise as it appears funding to prop up jobs UK-wide only seems to be on offer when the English in the south-east start to find themselves in need. The Tory government propping up their heartlands. It is an easy accusation to make but equally a very believable one on which they have form.

How then are people planning on experiencing these lockdowns. Boris Johnson says it’ll be only for four weeks but the previous one was only supposed to be three weeks and it ended up being three months. If people living in the Arctic circle can not just endure but actively enjoy a few months of winter darkness then surely we in the UK can survive some bleak skies for a bit. Apparently one method they have for remaining happy in these long winters is to find excitement in the things they can do instead which they can’t in summer months. They ski, they make fires, they go for night walks, they do indoor things. In Scotland because the weather can be so volatile it has always felt necessary to make the most of good weather and complete outdoor tasks, or even just enjoy the outdoors. When it’s raining and cold we do the jobs we have put off inside the house. It may not be the most exciting prospect but it creates a wealth of opportunities. With many having already experienced one lockdown in Spring they will be either daunted and fatigued by the prospect of a second or excited at being even better at their second attempt. What didn’t we get to learn in the first one, what didn’t we manage to watch on Netflix, what books didn’t we manage to get through and so on. Modern life has meant people rarely get to spend lengthy periods of time with themselves but it is crucial in our self-development as people. Aren’t we lucky we get a second roll of the dice. A hard six perhaps? What a glorious opportunity we have.

BR#5 – Frankenstein

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From time to time as adults we throw a little classic in to our reading. The kind of story that spawned others and has passed the test of time. The kind you could have studied at school. That last one in a way makes it sound unappealing considering we don’t always look back on the book we studied at school fondly. Frankenstein though isn’t one of them, it’s one of the ones you wish you had studied at school. It has so many of those moments you could see yourself analysing in a class, it has layers. It is also very simple and obvious. A main uncomplicated but unbelievable story. Take it at face value and that’s it.

The writing feels like it could be updated although it shouldn’t ever happen. When things are translated they are also updated in language and in a subtle way style. A book written in English will forever be ageing. I would love to know how Tolstoy sounds to a Russian than he is in the latest translation I read. In that sense I can tell it was written in the early nineteenth century. While that’s not a problem it will be one day.

Shelley approaches all sorts of ideas and concepts throughout the book. They are too numerous to go into detail in just five hundred words but she discusses justice, the role of god, she approaches ideas of personhood and what is is to be a person, our understanding of ethics, even existentialism but this was long before it had become an ism. This is an entire philosophy course for a year covered. There are many essays written on it. I imagine it’s a common understanding too that there is the potential schizophrenia angle which relates in a way to ideas of duality in the book. They need each other, the monster never tries to hurt him and when he dies the monster goes off to die too. Did Frankenstein give a part of himself in the creation of the monster. In a way the monster shows more of what we call humanity than Viktor Frankenstein who in the end becomes a monster himself in a sad way. In a contemporary sense we could think of the development of Artificial Intelligence. The monster has not only an ability to learn but has self-consciousness, the ultimate stage of creating free thinking robots. I could go on and on.

Quite interestingly the book has nearly as interesting a back story. Mary Shelley was the daughter of the revolutionary thinkers William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, and the wife of the poet Percy Shelley. In the ‘Year Without Summer’ of 1816 when they were visiting the exiled and infamous poet and writer amongst many things, Lord Byron in Switzerland, the weather forced them to stay indoors and Byron came up with the idea they all wrote horror stories. In a dream over the next few nights the story of Frankenstein and his monster came to Mary Shelley.

Along with all this and not to be forgotten it’s actually quite a good story. You don’t just read it to learn and look smart, you read it to enjoy. I assume they teach it in schools still and if they don’t can’t think why. It’s so full of everything it would be a waste. I ended it really feeling happy that I had just read a good book. We all should, we may just learn a little eloquence and humanity from a monster.

Elizabeth, Victor & Some Contradictions

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As I stare blankly at the screen I realise I have nothing to say. So why say anything at all. I have to don’t you know. I have to because I decided I have to. The plan had been to write this before I went and made pizzas but I have been having too much of a nice time sitting around in my reading corner I lost track of time. It turns out too that I do actually have enough books for a suitable stack, one which now doubles as my coffee cup stand for extra pleasure. I also bought two plants yesterday and have promptly named them today. They go by Elizabeth and Victor. I’ll leave you work out which book I have been enjoying in my new armchair reading corner. It’s really nice having plants, how I waited this long is beyond me. They add an extra layer of life to a house even if they are from Lidl. I see them as rescue plants. They’re going to recover and grow into something beautiful, in their own right that is, however they see fit to evolve.

The idea then had been to just quickly introduce todays piece which was going to be on one quick idea I had while making pizzas but I seem to have gotten a little carried away and written half of today’s piece. It can be like this with anything though; we use so much energy avoiding starting something because we imagine it’s going to be exhausting or beyond us but the only exhausting bit is the avoidance and it’s only beyond us because we avoid doing it. There was a period in which I decided an approach to completing both tasks and pleasures which involved effort was to do them the moment they entered my mind. I believed that they entered my mind because it was now I had to do them and not wait until later once I had finished procrastinating. I still kind of believe it but only kind of because my attempt only lasted about half an hour on the two separate occasions I tried. Our abilities to put so much effort into avoiding effort is quite remarkable. There really are so many levels to human fallibility, we’re such complex creatures that these simplistic boxes we all stuff ourselves and others into do everybody such a disservice.

…

Well I didn’t leave much room for my moment of wisdom and understanding I had while making pizzas. It does mean though I don’t have to write much now I’m back in and it’s late so maybe I’ll have my first early night in a while. Drum roll please….in light of these VE celebrations going on today, why is it people who seem most intent and proud of celebrating the victory of freedom over tyranny as it is described, are also the ones happiest to support people and laws which aim to take away our liberties and take us further down the path towards possible tyranny. It is a generalisation and a stereotype, but it is also an accurate representation of many people. There just seems to be something odd and contradictory about it. That was my thought.

A Reading Corner

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I write this in a unique spot. I have a new armchair. Unique in that this is a unique moment for me writing this in a new armchair not unique in that I’m the only person out there with an armchair. New is not entirely accurate either, it was donated to the cause, my cause to be more precise and it’s dusty enough not to be new. It’s a vomit yellow colour which is unfortunate so it’ll be getting a throw put over it as soon as possible and despite looking a little uncomfortable it’s actually really cosy to sit in. It is currently sitting in a corner of my lounge which used to be piled up with random junk, it was my messy corner. Now however I am a man with an armchair and a reading corner.

I am going to attach a lamp and it’s shade to a wooden stool I have which will involve a drill and a little creativity, and I have bought something to go on the wall behind the chair. The something is a nautical navigation map of this area and this I would ordinarily find a little kitsch but I quite like the idea of it in a reading corner, there seems something fitting about it and not just in an ironic way. That could be also because I enjoy the humour value of creating a reading corner with an armchair, even though I want it for actual sitting and reading not just as an art installation. I’m sure humour is a healthy way to view these things. I have my reading corner and it’s ridiculous but I’m happy with it. Or I will be when I finish it and it’s not just a chair stuffed in the corner of a room. Which makes me realise I now need a bookshelf although it would probably have to be on the wall above my head which makes me nervous as I’ve seen my past carpentry. Perhaps I should just build a library and be done with it, that seems safer.

I’ve always wanted a good bookshelf so I can stack all my books in a highly visible manner in an attempt to impress people and look intelligent. I also want one for my own pleasure of course and for the practical necessity but there is a bit of ego involved I know for sure. I could stack my books instead that has potential for satisfying imagery but you need a lot of them for that. And a plant. I’ll definitely need to get a plant now. The problem with all of this is that I’m going to create a beautiful space and then have to move out. This flat isn’t forever so neither will the art installation representing my life. It’s like graffiti in a way, the temporary home like the impermanent wall mural. Someone will always paint over it one day just as someone else will live in this space and make it their own. Perhaps I shouldn’t get too attached to this new corner after all but I’ll just carry on enjoying it in the meantime.

An Unknown Transition Into The Unknown

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I’m not someone who feels the need to play music all the time. I enjoy silence. I enjoy podcasts. I enjoy music. But a balance between them is vital, as is my mood on their regularity. I have been listening to some music for the last half hour while I was online and avoiding writing this. When I see people listening to music and being able to study, read or write, basically concentrate, I have often wished this was something I was capable of. The words coming on this page would be inspired by the sounds around me but I can’t focus and not even one word follows.

I was listening to some dub and desiring a party or a festival. These last few years have been an interesting transition in life. Everyone goes though different chapters in their lives, even if they marry at 18, never divorce, never leave their home town and keep the same job, there will still be chapters within this. Mine have been slightly more adventurous and I can recognise periods when I wanted nothing but travel and others when I felt a need to rest for example. It took about five years from my first desires for rest to get to were I am now but life is all so extreme that I’m still longing for adventure equally alongside some kind of ‘normal’ existence. ‘Normal’ is a strange and inexplicable concept, which is why I won’t even try explaining what I mean by it and I know my version of it will still be a long way from the man with many chapters in the same town above. But fuck, right now having listened to a little music and recollected a few memories, there is a part of me that wants to put down the ‘normal’ so much and pick up the alternate once more.

I have also come to appreciate this life though recently and value the people living it far more than I ever did at the height of being a prick in my more adventurous moments. I’ve come to realise there is as much value in this existence as one lived with daily excitement and variety, it’s different value but it’s still value regardless, as it too is exciting and varied regardless. That doesn’t stop me wanting to drop it all and jump on a boat heading somewhere wild and exotic though but I doubt that will ever leave me. Equally this current existence is an extreme in the other direction as I know the ideal will be somewhere in the middle. I only meant to come here for a few months to help a mate out and it’s been nearly six months. He’s taking great pleasure in reminding me a few more months and I’ll have broken my longest job record. With this pizza takeaway now being a thing and coronavirus being an even bigger thing it seems I may still be sitting in this same seat in four months trying to understand what the drink in my hand represents.

Is this now life? Well it’s the current version and I’m starting to learn enough from it that interesting things happen when we roll with whatever comes up. In a way that’s a freedom more real than any enforced search for a liberty that ultimately becomes constrictive. There are always things out of our control which make us jump between paths, enduring the grey transitional space between, but once we’re actually on it; life never really seems all that bad. Quite often the opposite. It has become clear to me recently that we’re owed nothing, their is no destiny, that desires will never happen if we wait for them to and ideas of fairness miss the harsh unknown nature of life. It is an irrational and absurd world. Nothing bad has happened but seemingly I’ve managed to understand the knowledge I previously had and it all seems to make a little more sense. This is why discipline is necessary. Why being able to focus the energy to achieve the goal is the only way we can really get things done. Why I’m curious, excited and unsure about what comes next. It’s a little unknown. But then everything always has been.

The Pickaxe Of Liberty

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Go on admit it you’re all desperate for a holiday. But then maybe you feel like you’re having one already. As I am still working I’m very envious of everybody sitting around, reading, studying and exercising. There is every chance I’m simply envious of the idea that this is what people are doing because while everyone may be taking photos of themselves doing these things, or videos of themselves being creative and inspiring, there’s also a good chance they’re currently lying on the sofa watching something on Netflix about tigers. Sorry that was two weeks ago, I’m so behind the times I wonder what the current obsession is. Are people getting bored though. Are those still sober dreaming of going back to their jobs because they’ve realised they’re not carpenters, painters or musicians and that actually they don’t really enjoy reading books as much as they thought and told everyone they would. I’ve admitted already I’m envious but I am also aware that I have spent large chunks of my life travelling and doing all these fun things but in random places. I’m well practised at not getting bored. Having spent time in the countryside I’m also well practised at not seeing people for a couple of weeks. So I’m envious but also aware that I’ve experienced a few lockdowns already in my life.

It is though arguably a social experiment that will define this period of history. I’m not trying to trivialise this very serious situation but that doesn’t make it anything other than a future treasure trove of theories for researchers. I’m not a researcher, but I enjoy observing, and I’m already really looking forward to seeing what conclusions the researchers come to. I’m not an optimist in the traditional sense, I’m no Pangloss and this is certainly not the best of all possible worlds. I don’t believe in the idea of being constantly positive and happy because it is balance we need in life. However, there is always a possibility to find something positive in any situation no matter how bad, and while it doesn’t have to outweigh the bad, there is no reason for us not to enjoy and embrace it’s existence. Who knows maybe we will even use it as a pickaxe to help us climb out of our hole. For this reason we will find something to celebrate in all of everything that is going on. Researchers will discover some terrible results, the media will fill us with dread and fear, while politicians will continue to chip away at the last scraps of our self-determination. They will also discover incredibly positive results, there will be happy stories told and, actually maybe I’m pushing it a little far by including the latter group.

In a way though none of this will mean anything, not really. We may enjoy discovering these moments of positivity but unless they exist in our immediate realm they’re more than likely to just pass on through. What will leave us with any lasting sense of light though will be what we can see in our own lives, in our immediate situations. What little events are happening right now that could snowball into something resembling that pickaxe. What are we experiencing that if we manage to step back from for a second we can recognise as bringing some kind of benefit to our lives. As I said it doesn’t have to outweigh the other stuff going on, but even if it is just one percent of everything going on in your life it is infinitely more important than the other ninety-nine. It’s there. It’s always there if you manage to look.

Free Time Anyone?

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What is interesting with this coronavirus situation; is what people are going to discover about themselves in this period. I mean this in a completely positive way. Yes this could be a piece on the worst elements of peoples characters coming out but i’ve already talked about scumbags stealing the last pasta out of the hands of old ladies. What I mean is that if you ignore the possibility of illness and the stress of financial ruin and homelessness, I know I’m asking a lot here, this does create the most wonderful opportunity for people to find a lot of time on their hands. It is only a matter of time before we’re in lockdown, a pasta trip may be in order, but when lockdown does come we’re going to be forced to interact with ourselves a lot. That will result in a lot of ‘self-interacting’ I’m sure but when people get bored of that and have watched all the series on Netflix they can endure they may just be forced into something else.

What they will end up doing is anyones guess. I imagine if they have access to an instrument then they may learn an instrument. If they have enough books or ebooks then people are going to become rather well read. I imagine people will find the time to exercise as well as needing it when stuck around at home all day and night. Maybe people will find the time for creativity, all you need is a pencil and a blank page, and the possibilities are endless. I recommend people search online for courses because there are an endless number to complete. I mentioned the other day I had developed a new hobby, well I’m currently doing a course on edx.org and there are an infinite amount to complete. We may just connect with old friends and family, all it takes is a quick message to see how people are.

Really what I am attempting to do is put a positive spin on all this because even when something is ninety-nine percent negative there is still that one percent we can choose to focus on. Choose may be the wrong word because events are not always our choice, but it is there, it does exist. Like I said I am far too often filling these pages with some bullshit about how fucked the world is and all that goes along with that but sometimes it is important for the sake of our sanity and those around us, to not necessarily be positive, but perhaps to see the positives. There’s a difference, I’ll leave it up to you to decide what that means for yourself.

Haruki Murakami

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I finally got over my readers block and finished what feels like my first book in months. I feel very pleased with myself. With enforced isolation around the corner maybe we’ll all get a chance to have a little read soon. The book was ‘Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World’ by Haruki Murakami. I’m sure there’s a proper word for it but it is two stories running parallel to each other, which you find out as the story evolves are interconnected. One was a cyber punk detective story about a man who ‘shuffles’ information for a quasi-governmental organisation call The System and who finds himself being chased down by first The System’s shady rivals and then some underground sub-human aquatic monsters called Inklings. The story was written in 1985 so imagine all of your favourite dark grimy 80s punk sci-fi films and picture how that could look and unfold. The other is a dreamy story about a man who arrives in a walled town which he cannot leave, he has his shadow taken from him and he works as a dreamreader. The town also has unicorns. It is obvious in any book which is two stories together that they interconnect so it is probably okay to say that without giving too much away.

It seems every Murakami novel, I say every but this is only my third, the men are solitary lonely lovers of jazz and alcohol. It mustn’t be coincidental that prior to becoming an author Murakami ran a jazz bar in Tokyo. The women in his story are never like any women I’ve ever met, they seem both simple and deep and are usually quite promiscuous. I have heard criticism of his female characters as being unreal but I mentioned this to a woman once who suggested the women were merely described from the perspective of the narrator and that this was either how the narrator experienced them or how he viewed women. They couldn’t in that case be unreal and I quite like that description, it seems like an insight worth repeating when I am attempting to sound smart.

Murakami described this as his favourite novel he had written and while it is not his most successful or well renowned it does seem to have won a variety of awards over the years. I enjoyed it but I felt it lacked on to ‘South of the Border, West of the Sun’ and his collection of short stories ‘Men Without Women’ which was the first Murakami I read and didn’t just enjoy because I was feeling like a man without a woman at the time. He has a pained empty loneliness in his work, apparently in this style it is a very Japanese thing, but it feels like something you can connect with in a positive way despite those not appearing to be positive attributes at first. We enjoy authors because of story or language but quite often because we can connect to them. There is a depth to his work that is approachable and relatable, and as I finish his books I am always excited to read the next. If you haven’t read your first yet I think you know what you need to do. You may just have a little time on your hands soon anyway.

Just Sit Down And Read

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It is very important not to speak on behalf of others. To say people do this or people do that, we like to imagine these things because we have recognised others acting in specific ways. In reality it is a two-fold mistake because if we do recognise these actions in others then we are generalising, and we are unaware that we recognise these behaviours because they are most likely things we recognise in others from ourselves. This is an over simplification and I suspect is just an example of one or two things, which I am then using to make sweeping statements in the very same way I derided others for above. The point of that incredibly long winded intro though was not to highlight that I clearly still don’t grasp the importance of only having a small word count, but to lead into making my own sweeping statements generally, using my understanding of myself to justify them.

I have spent much time reading today as I never went to work and I feel pretty pleased with myself. I have been suffering, as I mentioned in the past, from a form of readers block. Not only have I struggled to sit down and read, to do this intensely enough to focus on a book long enough to avoid forgetting about it has been impossible. Add to that the fact I have even gone against everything I previously believed and viewed the whole art of reading as a pointless endeavour, it is not too much of a stretch to say it has been a weird time recently. There have been periods in my life when I haven’t read much at all and others in which I can’t put a book down, one after another. Why that is is unclear but having been someone who has moved around a lot and spent a few weeks to a few months in different surroundings it is safe to say our environment plays a huge role in what we choose to do as a hobby.

There have been many moments in life when I have been frustrated by this constant chopping and changing of interests. Recently for example I have been frustrated with myself. There have been plenty of moments when I’ve killed time drifting from one piece of nonsense to another online. I should be frustrated because it is a waste of our finite time, but perhaps it’s also necessary to help us enjoy and appreciate the more important moments. The point I’ve been working up to from the beginning though is that it may just be okay to in this instance read loads and then not at all because as long as we’re always doing something, we will be doing what we enjoy. If I were to force myself to read and not do whatever that other productive thing is I would see reading as a chore and an ordeal. While I don’t deny there will always be a little effort required to find the discipline to sit down and do things that require thought, even if we really enjoy them, there must always be enjoyment in them or for me it defeats the point. It was good to read today, I found the time and I enjoyed myself. I read for the pure pleasure.

To link in with what now feels like a rather pointless first paragraph, I am making wild assumptions that everyone is just like me. They frustrate themselves when they are not doing the things they think they want to do, that they feel they should be doing. Instead they’re doing other things but perhaps not quite as intensely as they would be if they weren’t constantly imagining they should be reading. There was a point to the first paragraph although I now pretty much disagree with my own sentiment from it as I’m aware that not everyone does what I have just described. I will however leave it in so that the thought process from A to B can be clear for all to see. It appears it is okay to change your mind. What you say once need not be your belief forever more.

Lovely Books

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There is something romantic about books. The smell of a new one. The smell of an old one. The clean, crisp cover of a new one. The worn, well read cover of an old one. The aesthetics of a well designed cover. The feel of a well made specially designed book. Browsing in a bookshop with an idea of the type of book you may like to buy, finding one by an author you know and getting caught up in the excitement that follows. Going off in a different direction and finding a completely random book on a topic you hadn’t previously thought may be interesting but somehow in this form all of a sudden became desirable. Why not buy them both. End up buying two more on top of that. The physical pleasure of holding a book as you read it as opposed to one of these electronic readers. While life may be more technological these days in many beneficial ways, nothing will be able to replace the simple pleasure of holding and reading from a book. Sitting in a cafe reading a book as you drink your coffee. Sitting in a cafe looking cool as you pretend to read your book. One thing in the same situation, appearing to all the world to be playing out the same way but completely different. Books even help people with our most base desires. Books are amazing.

There is one thing about owning books too and that is the ability to fill a book shelf of all your proudest ones. There is something incredibly appealing about this but I suspect there is a part of us driven by the same instinct that allows us to feel credible sitting in a cafe and not really reading as much as we like to imagine we are or were going to. The danger with books is that they become another aesthetic possession. There are plenty of really cool people out there with great selections of books positioned on very prominent shelves. I know I haven’t read all the books I own. Does the book become more that just a physical copy of a series of words formed in an interesting manner? Well yes is the short answer. You can’t have all the romanticism of the first paragraph without trying to impress people with your cool book collection. Be honest, only your very best make the public shelf.

Currently I’m going though what I can only describe as readers block. Like I said I love books, but what I didn’t say was that I love reading and this is an important distinction to make. There are times I love reading but right now I’m struggling. The desire is there but I keep on allowing myself the distraction of something else. Readers block has ahold of me. But I still love books and even if I am continuing to struggle I know this will pass. In the meantime I bought four books today when scouring the charity shops, great ones too, I’m really pleased with the finds. I will put them next to the ten books I bought two months ago, last time a went to the charity shops. Maybe I’ll actually read some of these ones this time and not just position them strategically around my flat for maximum impressiveness. I hope so because I miss reading. We have so much to learn and it’s all out there if we take the time. It may just be another part of this journey into discipline I seem to have found myself on but good things don’t always come easily to us even when we enjoy and benefit from them. I promise you there is a book review coming one day, let’s hope it opens some proverbial floodgate of sorts