Wasn’t in a good mood today so my partner brought us to the neighbourhood library. Chanced upon Matthieu Ricard’s “Notebooks of a Wandering Monk“, and didn’t realise it was such a thick volume:
I have to say there is something about an ebook reader that makes consuming these lengthy books way easier – I don’t get intimidated how never-ending it seems to be, and I don’t get hand cramps from trying to hold it for lengthy periods of time. Also, it wouldn’t kill me if it fell on my face. I think I would struggle to finish this if I read the physical book, it just looks so impossible I may not even be inclined to try. Strange how our minds work, and how deliberate obfuscation can be helpful sometimes.
[tw: suicide] I also stumbled upon this obscure looking book:
I’m just at the beginnings of the book, but I’ll share a quote:
Humans carry transform themselves into whatever or whomever they wish to be. We are limited only by our finitude, the horizon toward which we are steadily moving, which defines our being and becoming. However, the creative act itself allows us to confront the subjective experience of death and reach beyond our own finitude (May, 1975). Just as Prometheus rebelled against Zeus by stealing fire from Mount Olympus and bestowing it upon humans, just as Chiron’s courageous sacrifice allowed Prometheus to transcend the suffering to which he’d been sentenced, creativity is rebellion against forces that limit our existence. In this day and age, however, the expression of creativity challenges not the Olympian gods but the gods of our society-apathy, materialism, conformity, greed-which provide the masses illusory comfort because they have form. What is formless is frightening to human beings; it is an abyss that stares back. For this reason, the generative act of creation requires a great deal of courage, what Rollo May calls creative courage.
Not sure if this sort of thing is your thing, but it is definitely my thing.