I bought a book today. In a bookstore. Okay, I bought three, but only one was right there, in the discount section. There was a moment of weirdness, as I know both the author as well as the title differently. "Mark Aurel - Wege zu sich selbst" (ways to oneself). Could that be "Marcus Aurelius - Meditations"? Took me a little to find out that indeed it is. Instead of just leaving the latin name, they had to translate it into German. Well, okay. And I get that meditating can be a form of finding the way to oneself. Still weird.
The root of me buying this book comes from my good friend @socraticmthd. He's my encyclopedia for almost everything, especially when it comes to spiritual practices, philosophy or culture in general. There's just nobody else who can explain any religion factually, yet both interesting and somehow spiked with pop-culture references from Firefly, Airplane, The Princess Bride and so on, without diminishing the seriousness of the subject, but somehow accentuating it.
A couple of weeks ago I had asked yet another question, something that was going on in my mind, and he said: "You know that you're reinventing the wheel most of the times you ask yourself and me those questions?" And he's right. While I'm a solid thinker, and usually come to decent conclusions, most of them could be attained by * drumroll * reading. The "old masters", as he put it. That's why I fought my way through "Abolition of Man", working on "A Conflict of Visions", and now Meditations.
All three were his ideas. We read and discussed Byong-Chol Hans "Burn-out society", and then wanted to do the same with C.S. Lewis, but for some reason Abolition of Man was very difficult for me (in English). But Meditations is a lot of little parts, easily to read, contemplate, and then discuss - and maybe make a post about it. That's the idea. One or two parts per day.
I miss reading.
I was a ferocious reader once, but in Ecuador, there is almost nobody to discuss it with. Very few people read, even before reels and all that brain-numbing technology came around. And though I enjoyed reading, there was always something else to be done with other people. Additionally, I, too, got sucked into the whole Netflix-series-thing, watching instead of reading. Not even on purpose, but more out of habit.
Time to change the habit.
I've reduced my watching-time a lot. I also reduced my late hive-reading-time. And I'll try to make a habit out of reading the old masters in the evening. Could be a New Year Resolution, but why wait - especially since I have some time on my hands now, as I'm on something like a vacation.
Do you have any habit that you're currently working on?
The other book that I ordered was also recommended by him, "The master and his emissary" by Iain McGilchrist. I was always a sucker for chemistry, and had my oral final exams in high school about neurobiology, which I absolutely aced. So I'm looking forward to that one, hoping that it won't destroy my self-esteem regarding my proficiency in English yet again.
The third book was recommended to me here on Hive, actually, by Galenkp. "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy. I haven't even received it yet, nor read a single page - and yet I'm eager to read it. Not only because of who recommended it, but also because my friend socraticmthd beat me to it - I mentioned that I had ordered it, and he got a audio book-sample, sending me a message a little later stating that McCarthy is as good as everyone says.
Now I'm double looking forward to it. And I got it in German, and though some genius might get lost in translation, the English-German translations are generally pretty good. Both books arrive tomorrow, I hope I can make it to town to pick them up.
What are your thoughts about this topic? Please feel free to engage in any original way, including dropping links to your posts on similar topics. I'm happy to read (and curate) any quality content that is not created by LLM/AI, as well as read your own experience and point of view, I love to learn!
If you're going to read The Road, prepare for endless misery. Only joking...well, sort of.
Yes, that's exactly what I was told. I'll let you know how it goes...
Let me know what you think. I feel you'll like it as you'll see the layers of humanity in it, highs and lows, all boiled down to what is essentially abject misery for everyone, the planet generally. It's a powerful read.
I'm lucky I saw this post, you've not tagged me for some reason. Glad I saw it.
I will absolutely do, and if it's a post, I'd tag you. I try not to tag highly engaged hivers when it's not important, as they're very busy already and get a lot of useless tags.
I think I remember that you recommended it to me when we were talking about the facettes of humanity and children, how to raise them in this world. So I'm not expecting any rainbows 😅
I don't mind people tagging me in cases like this post, it's relevant. I appreciate your respect though.
As for the book...there's parts that are uplifting; the strength of will, character and drive a human can display. But it's all enshrouded by a heavy layer of misery and suffering. I think, reading it carefully and thinkijg about it along the way is the way to go.
Good luck.
A solid and powerful read though.
A glimpse of the future?
Hmm, time will tell.
Anyway, I enjoyed it, have read it a few times, listened to the audio book and seen the movie. All very powerful and yeah, miserable.
It's quite a few tears since I read it, and it did leave an impression, though I must say, I'm a big fan of grammar.:)
Yes, the grammer thing threw me at first making it somewhat difficult to read; one gets used to it though, the brain works around it I guess, and the impact of the world and emotions, the sense of hopelessness he depicts begins to take over. It's sometimes oppressive isn't it? An excellent writer.
I'm also over here trying to establish a consistent reading habit again after falling off the wheel a couple of times already thanks to watching instead of reading. The latter is really quite passive and one can get stuck in sort of a comfortable position watching series/movies and just let the mind wonder a bit or get muted totally. I missed reading esoteric books about spirituality back in the days, lots to think about the nature of reality, makes me feel wiser, now I seem a bit dumb when I think, thanks to much of this superficial online junk I'm subconsciously consuming :D
Will look into The Road book, and try give it a read. The name hits a spot for me :)
Yeah that's the danger of comfort! I got a nice idea from Melville's Bartleby the Scribbler - I prefer not to. I tell myself that every time my finger goes towards the facebook button on the phone. Or netflix. Or similars. Having it actively in my mind helps a lot in refraining - now I have to get to the "I prefer to" when I could read a book (and not on hive, which is kind of in the middle).
We all need more boobs.
I mean books.
They'd distract me too much if I had too many around me. The books I mean, of course.
Lol.