Saturday, September 16, 2006
Saturday Night
Tonight is a good night. Michael and I are enjoying a quiet evening at home. There's football, pizza, and wine. Things are so busy that we're gone most nights of the week, so I really enjoy evenings like this. Michael is tuning his guitar for church tomorrow. We've both set the studying aside for the time being. Well, I must admit that I haven't opened a school book today. I took the step of taking the book out of my bag and setting it on the table, but that's as far as I've gotten. So far this semester has held up as being less demanding than prior semesters. I'm not having to spend much time studying. I think I'm getting spoiled.
I'm actually having time to do some pleasure reading. Right now, I'm reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, which I think is the longest book I've ever read. I'm 400 pages into it, and only halfway through. I am really enjoying it, though, and don't care if it takes me another month to finish it. This is only the second or third Dickens novel I've read, and I really like him. He wrote so many novels, that there's so much more to read.
In the past, I have gotten bogged down in the really long novels, because with school they take me so long to read, but this is the second one I've read lately. I also read The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This was another novel that Michael suggested, and it was excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it. He wrote several others that I haven't had the opportunity to read, but I've heard they're also excellent.
Reading is truly enjoyable to me, and it's exciting to think that there are so many more good books out there that I haven't read yet. Classic literature encompasses so much, that I feel like I've only just begun in my reading of it. Not to mention the more modern authors that I'm just beginning to discover. There is absolutely a lifetime's worth of enjoyment in this.
I'm going to return to my novel now, after I go down the street to get a snow cone. If anyone who lives near here hasn't discovered the great snow cone stand down the street, you're missing out. Until next time, have a good night.
I'm actually having time to do some pleasure reading. Right now, I'm reading David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, which I think is the longest book I've ever read. I'm 400 pages into it, and only halfway through. I am really enjoying it, though, and don't care if it takes me another month to finish it. This is only the second or third Dickens novel I've read, and I really like him. He wrote so many novels, that there's so much more to read.
In the past, I have gotten bogged down in the really long novels, because with school they take me so long to read, but this is the second one I've read lately. I also read The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. This was another novel that Michael suggested, and it was excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it. He wrote several others that I haven't had the opportunity to read, but I've heard they're also excellent.
Reading is truly enjoyable to me, and it's exciting to think that there are so many more good books out there that I haven't read yet. Classic literature encompasses so much, that I feel like I've only just begun in my reading of it. Not to mention the more modern authors that I'm just beginning to discover. There is absolutely a lifetime's worth of enjoyment in this.
I'm going to return to my novel now, after I go down the street to get a snow cone. If anyone who lives near here hasn't discovered the great snow cone stand down the street, you're missing out. Until next time, have a good night.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
I read a book a couple of weeks ago, on the recommendation of Michael. It was "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. This was the first Kundera novel I had read, and I really liked it. The underlying theme of the novel, and where the title comes from, has been rolling around in my head since I read it. So, I came back to reread the beginning of it and thought that I would share a little of it.
"But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfilment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
Parmenides posed this very question in the sixth century before Christ. He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being. One half of the opposition he called positive (light, fineness, warmth, being), the other negative. We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which one is positive, weight or lightness?
Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.
Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all."
I think that this is an interesting question. Lightness vs. weight. I don't actually have any insights, I've just been thinking about this. So, if anyone has any thoughts, I'd be curious to hear them
"But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfilment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
Parmenides posed this very question in the sixth century before Christ. He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/non-being. One half of the opposition he called positive (light, fineness, warmth, being), the other negative. We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which one is positive, weight or lightness?
Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.
Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all."
I think that this is an interesting question. Lightness vs. weight. I don't actually have any insights, I've just been thinking about this. So, if anyone has any thoughts, I'd be curious to hear them
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