Interestingly enough, I had all sorts of things to say so I was really looking forward to this post earlier today. However, now that I have spent half the day travelling and a lot of that was done while stuffing my face with tasty morsels (okay, so if I must admit it, the size was much more than a couple of small bits of food), I am now full and feeling pretty lethargic. That pretty much means that my brain has kind of shut down.
I will attempt to perservere over that feeling like I just want to flop down on my friend's sofa and stay there until some room becomes available and I don't feel like an overstuffed exercise ball...
This morning, I finished a book entitled "The Quiet American" which had been lent to me by a friend. It's not a new work but I found it quite relevant in today's world. To me, the basic message is that we should not get involved in other people's problems, unless that is, they ask for it. We should not assume that all of the world wants to be a democracy or that the west has all of the answers. Hell, we don't even have the answers for our own problems. Why the hell should we expect that we know what's best for the rest of the world, then? To me, it seems like we have some sort of ulterior motives.
I remember once, around the time of Big Daddy Bush's Gulf war, seeing a bumper sticker that said something like, "If Kuwait's national resource was broccoli, would there be a Gulf War?" At the time, Bush Sr. had been quoted as saying that he hated that particular vegetable. Being that oil was the actual resource of that area of the world, and America was dependant on it, then we had all the right and reason to start a war a very long way from North American soil.
This post is not to be an anti-American rant, it's just providing an example of how people meddle in things that do not directly concern them, even though they can provide you with all sorts of false reasoning for doing so. Perhaps we have to know which battles are important and which should just be left well enough alone. And, yes, that's me included...
That said, I loved the book.
Not only for the writing, but also for the fact that there were many notes written among the text by the friend who owned the book. Originally from Iran, trapped for years in Spain during the revolution in her home country and eventually coming to live in Quebec, she is an inspiration. She has suffered all sorts of hardship and come out with an amazing life story. One that puts my trivial little troubles into perspective when I sit down and think of it. (I swear that one day, I will convince her to let me write her life story)
That's a whole different story. Back to the book that she lent me, the many notes were written in her first language, Farsi and her fourth language which was French. They were there to help her to understand a novel written in the time of the French occupation in Viet Nam. I read the text with great enthusiasm because I was enjoying the book, but I was also excited to read the notations that she included. I could read and understand some of the French, but I could not read the Persian language. It added so much more to the book. I thank her so much for lending me the book in the first place.
It's just in time, really, because the library called about the book that I have waited three months to get entitled "This is your brain on music" and I believe it discusses the influence that music has on our thought processes. I brought it with me and will read it between the letters that I very much owe my friends. (And the postal rates just went up again)
The book comes at an ideal time which sees me contemplating finishing my music education. Those of you who I've talked to about this know how excited I am about this. Music was a big part of my childhood as my parents very much wanted me to become a pianist. There are many reasons that I did not finish this education but mostly because of the cost of lessons (I had to start paying for them myself) and incidents/people that caused me to doubt in my ability at the time. Now that I understand that, I find myself ready to try again. It's never too late to learn something new.
So, literature, the artform of handwritten correspondence and music are filling my days. Good food is filling my stomach. And now, I am afraid, sleep is calling me...
I will attempt to perservere over that feeling like I just want to flop down on my friend's sofa and stay there until some room becomes available and I don't feel like an overstuffed exercise ball...
This morning, I finished a book entitled "The Quiet American" which had been lent to me by a friend. It's not a new work but I found it quite relevant in today's world. To me, the basic message is that we should not get involved in other people's problems, unless that is, they ask for it. We should not assume that all of the world wants to be a democracy or that the west has all of the answers. Hell, we don't even have the answers for our own problems. Why the hell should we expect that we know what's best for the rest of the world, then? To me, it seems like we have some sort of ulterior motives.
I remember once, around the time of Big Daddy Bush's Gulf war, seeing a bumper sticker that said something like, "If Kuwait's national resource was broccoli, would there be a Gulf War?" At the time, Bush Sr. had been quoted as saying that he hated that particular vegetable. Being that oil was the actual resource of that area of the world, and America was dependant on it, then we had all the right and reason to start a war a very long way from North American soil.
This post is not to be an anti-American rant, it's just providing an example of how people meddle in things that do not directly concern them, even though they can provide you with all sorts of false reasoning for doing so. Perhaps we have to know which battles are important and which should just be left well enough alone. And, yes, that's me included...
That said, I loved the book.
Not only for the writing, but also for the fact that there were many notes written among the text by the friend who owned the book. Originally from Iran, trapped for years in Spain during the revolution in her home country and eventually coming to live in Quebec, she is an inspiration. She has suffered all sorts of hardship and come out with an amazing life story. One that puts my trivial little troubles into perspective when I sit down and think of it. (I swear that one day, I will convince her to let me write her life story)
That's a whole different story. Back to the book that she lent me, the many notes were written in her first language, Farsi and her fourth language which was French. They were there to help her to understand a novel written in the time of the French occupation in Viet Nam. I read the text with great enthusiasm because I was enjoying the book, but I was also excited to read the notations that she included. I could read and understand some of the French, but I could not read the Persian language. It added so much more to the book. I thank her so much for lending me the book in the first place.
It's just in time, really, because the library called about the book that I have waited three months to get entitled "This is your brain on music" and I believe it discusses the influence that music has on our thought processes. I brought it with me and will read it between the letters that I very much owe my friends. (And the postal rates just went up again)
The book comes at an ideal time which sees me contemplating finishing my music education. Those of you who I've talked to about this know how excited I am about this. Music was a big part of my childhood as my parents very much wanted me to become a pianist. There are many reasons that I did not finish this education but mostly because of the cost of lessons (I had to start paying for them myself) and incidents/people that caused me to doubt in my ability at the time. Now that I understand that, I find myself ready to try again. It's never too late to learn something new.
So, literature, the artform of handwritten correspondence and music are filling my days. Good food is filling my stomach. And now, I am afraid, sleep is calling me...
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