what reading means to me

Devon Corneal wrote an excellent article called, 'what reading means to me' on www.readbrightly.com that made me think of what reading means to me.

The first book I remember reading all by myself was Noddy; the way I remember it is that because reading was such hard work, Mummy did not insist that I read it (that wouldn't have worked) but left it lying around where she knew I'd eventually pick it up. It was about someone tying the balloon on a basket of eggs that then rained on Toyland - how I loved it and laughed at it! Since then, I've known people leave books around knowing that I wouldn't be able to resist picking them up :) When I was a little girl I thought heaven was an ice cream wallah in the library - specifically the Trivandrum Public Library. When libraries were hard to come by, I would buy second hand books and sell them back after reading them. If I didn't sell them back, and my book shelf would start to bend under the weight of a lot of books, Papa would quietly give them away and strangely I never caught on and even more strangely I wasn't upset when I did. I think that might be because he did not give away the real precious books. When I had to study for my exams, I would buy a good book for myself and leave it on my desk to be read, preferably in a single day, at the end of my last exam. If Mummy would get upset about this, my wonderful brother would talk her into leaving me in peace. I started by trying to read whatever my brother was reading, but remember the first time I picked up something he hadn't particularly recommended and when I loved it, how it felt like I could be my own person - it was also the first time I read an unabridged classic and couldn't really understand why people abridged books in the first place, it was Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist. When I got Years 11 and 12, I realised I was either going to continue reading my books at my normal pace or pass my exams, I couldn't go without reading so I ended up picking two books that would last me the whole time, by reading and re-reading them. These were The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Jyana Yoga by Swami Vivekananda. At undergrad when friends were difficult to come by, I often had my nose in a book, and looked like someone who could manage quite well without them. When the next exams came I had to read two thirds of the Lord of the Rings while hiding in the toilet, because my brother couldn't understand why I wouldn't stop after Part 1. In fact, I spent a lot of time reading secretly and getting in all sorts of trouble when I would be found. Sometimes I would scare myself and then get into Mummy's bed to feel better. Once I got caught at around 4am reading the last few pages of a john Gresham novel and had to promise that I wouldn't touch another book for the next so many weeks if I could only finish this one before going to bed. The last gift I received from my best friend, who died subsequently due to negligence and greed of a doctor following a fire accident, were two books: A PG Wodehouse and  To Kill a Mockingbird. When I moved to Melbourne, I read Harry Potter on the plane and found the Swami Chinmayanda's Commentary on Bhagvad Gita Chapter 18 in my guest bedroom, actually I found all 18 chapters there, but I started with Chapter 18 and only kept re-reading it. It would be many many years before I would be able to start at the start and go past chapter 2. When I was in the middle of my marriage and it wasn't making sense I read Liz Gillbert's Committed and such books; when it ended and left me slightly messed up I picked up (the excellent) Guide to Getting it On by Paul Joannides; when I couldn't understand where my career was going I read Ken Robinson's The Element: How finding your passion changes everything; when my boyfriend broke up with me I read 'Mistakes were made, but not by me' and 'Subluminal: The new unconscious and what it teaches us' - to make some sense of what was happening to me. I have bonded with teenaged brothers over books, when it was difficult to tell each other about what might have been going on in our lives, I've read passages out of the Lord of the Rings and laughed over Terry Pratchet's The Colour Of Magic. I've wanted to read the Russian authors and I wondered if most books need to be read till the end, I have realised some books considerably change your life and there is hardly any that leaves without a mark.

  

Why is the best yet to come?

Cynicism is not really a choice, it is a reaction, a response of the intellect when the mind looks at things in a certain way. I would like to say it is similar to how once you have eaten something you cannot chose for it to taste different - but you can always choose to put different things in your mouth, some things are easier than others to come by.

So when Assimov says,
"To me it seems to be important to believe people to be good even if they tend to be bad, because your own joy and happiness in life is increased that way, and the pleasures of the belief outweigh the occasional disappointments. To be a cynic about people works just the other way around and makes you incapable about enjoying the good things."

I think if you have observed people to be bad, it is nearly impossible to believe them to be good. That is why so many people have such great problems with religion, once they have observed that God doesn't quite exist, they can't go on believing in the bigger picture, great meaning of the world and this life.

That is why I like the Bhagvad Gita, it completely caters to people who have not observed god. krishna doesnt even guarantee arjun victory in war, he just says - do what you must, do it for a bigger cause and you will be happy - basically stop worshiping the 'I want' within you and come to see there is a whole wide world besides and you will be happy and at peace. He then goes ahead and talks about gods, and God, the world we experience when we are awake and the one we experience when we are asleep, while dreaming or not. He explains that once you are not entirely consumed with the 'I want' within you and when at peace, you will see the world differently - you will see there is more to it than meets the eye. You will see the bravery of everyday people, and immeasurable kindness of their hearts, the incredible resilience of their dreams and visions - and you will notice that it is those moments of strange forgetfulness of 'I want' and a strange recognition of 'We are' that bring out the shiniest, brightest, kindest, most beautiful in each one of us and makes life worth living; guarantees that the best is yet to come.

Dear Diary

it's been that kind of a day, and I've just realised that my brain did nothing more than the most elementary thinking today - it refused to absorb any difficult concepts and only wanted to look at pretty pictures or stuff that did not need a lot of reflection and it produced not one single good idea today. Basically, it behaved like a sick child. That is because I have not eaten well today, or yesterday and only intermittently in the days before that. No good food has made my brain weak.

 

You would wonder why, and i'll feel sorry to tell you that it is simply bad habits. I should add, since I have already decided to confess, that I am not very disciplined in my eating and sleeping - horrid habits - my room is also a bit of a mess, but eating and sleeping are the worst! So, instead of eating and sleeping properly, I waste my days feeling like an idiot. and of course since how we spend our days is how we spend our lives (said Annie Dillard), I waste my life.

 

nope - nothing more to add... nothing at all.

n

 

   

Being Human

I was thinking yesterday that since i am not a parent, now is perhaps the best time to at least think about some mottos that I will follow as a parent*, and these three came to mind:

- you may do whatever you choose, but you will come home and tell me about it and if you tell me about it yourself you will not be in trouble;
- i will not get too happy when you succeed or too unhappy when you fail; but i will enjoy it most when you enjoyed yourself in doing the best you possibly could! i'll be thrilled beyond words if you learn to live integrity, when you do some things just because you believe them to be right or because you have taken responsibility for them; 
- and something about habits - there are some good habits and some bad habits; and good habits are incredibly helpful and bad habits are an absolute pain in the #%#$#

but being parent is a subset of being a human being, which is also a superset of being a partner. I've realised of all relationships I find being a friend and a sibling easy; with both of these, you give them a whole lot of benefit of the doubt and you receive a whole lot of benefit of the doubt, and you really really enjoy that they are kind and brilliant and they know you really well and they enjoy knowing you that well and that's pretty much it.

Being a partner, i am realising, is a bit difficult. You are, even when not physically, then emotionally so much in each other's space - boy oh boy, it matter hugely to me exactly who you are and what you think and what you do; and I have to with my eyes and heart open walk into that life. I'll have to share my pets, my room, my babies with you and possibly your family. I do not know how to be kind when I am in such a vulnerable place myself, I do not know how to be self respecting and respecting you when we both disagree on exactly what to do at the same time, when you and I don't look at things the same way, and when i have not known you enough to understand your language or worse trust your values.  

* one of my friends had this Khalil Gibran poem as her guiding idea of being a mum,

Your children are not your children.

 They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

 They come through you but not from you,

 And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
 For they have their own thoughts.
 You may house their bodies but not their souls,
 For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
 which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
 You may strive to be like them,
 but seek not to make them like you.
 For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
 
You are the bows from which your children
 as living arrows are sent forth.
 The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
 and He bends you with His might
 that His arrows may go swift and far.
 Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
 For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
 so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Vedanta

it fills my heart, the way nothing else can - apart from people - people are alive and unexpected.

because i live alone, i can let peace and silence fill my heart at times, and then, sometimes, i let myself wander in the magic land of words, where I enter into the land of sounds and symbols (or symbols with sounds) and then, before i know it, like a hologram, the symbols dissolve into a whole new world and it is like the tardis (or the time lord magic) it is bigger on the inside (maybe that is what real time lord magic is, books or its cousin imagination!). and because i don't have people around me all the time, i find them quite magical and unexpected - full of kindness and surprise, sometimes even shock! on their own way in their own stories.. then there is music, i do not know how to choose, but it wonders into my life, often the way food smells waft in from the neighbour's kitchen.

but sometimes i am in spaces where people and books and music and silence and peace aren't able to reach; it is at those times it fills my heart (even tho it has never really disappeared), and it turns the overwhelming world into... something like stories and fables, perhaps? something primitive and beyond words, like wisdom, something that gives sense to everything... and instead of being overwhelmed and lost and battered in this space where people and books and music and silence and peace aren't able to reach, i find my way out of it with my heart full of gratitude.