(And evening notes, from my notebook:
One thing I know: this always helps, even if I forget about it when I stand alone above the clouds, millions of miles from the closest star. Eons between me and the closest physical object. A chair, a window. Writing like this always helps. Now I sit for real in this couch, big notebook leaned against my knees and teacup against my stomach. It doesn’t necessarily make me understand, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,)
Tag Archives: books
Kenya Art Journal – 13/13
The end! Summary of what books I read during the trip, and about that time I fell into the ocean with my bag.
Zambia Travel Diary – Day 5
2015.09.07 11.36 It’s easier for me to feel alone here because I don’t understand. It’s foolish, maybe, of me to look at people and think I know them through my first judgemental presumptions. But I do. And usually they’re close to me. Most people I see, I see a lot, and I like to imagine I solve them like puzzles even though maybe I don’t. Here I can’t even pretend. I look at people and my mind doesn’t trick me into believing I know what’s inside their heads when they look at me. I know that we’re similar all over the world, humans with sparkling nerve-endings and weird theories, but cultures still manage to change us until we don’t recognise each other. Myself as much as anyone else. I wish I could be here long enough to learn how they think, and that we could look the same and erase any visible distance.
12.00 My book is so good. The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Like daang, it might be one of the best ones I’ve ever read.
22.16 The streets are different here. If you were to drive to the sister of the woman my uncle’s marrying, it’s a right left right left, and you pass by kids walking around in school uniforms, people selling fruits and marble columns. And I found a nice book store today, in one of the slightly fancy shopping malls. Self help book after self help book and tons about business and career, but they had some fiction too (That’s what you need, learn to see from that, learn to see from that).
(2015.09.08 00.04 I just finished my book, The Ocean at The End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. I think it’s one of my favourites. It’s small in a way, not high and mighty, bigger on the inside. Not bound by logic in a way that’s inspiring, and magic seeping through every letter into my heart.)
Minimalism
I’ve read a lot about minimalism lately and it has seriously sparked my interest. Not as related to design, but as a lifestyle of owning less, so that less of your affection will be aimed at your belongings. Owning less so that it won’t be your focus, so that you’ll have less things that own you.
Now, imagine being able to fit everything you own into a few suitcases, imagine the freedom of being able to go anywhere you want and taking your home with you.
Though I would make an exception for my books. I guess that if you go all out you should give them away and instead retort to the nearest library, but that’s just one of those things I don’t at all have the desire to do. Don’t get me wrong, I love the library and used to never buy books, but now when I got myself a decent collection of the favourites I continually re-read, I like the way they look laying around in my room. Piled on top of small tables and on the floor with teacups balancing on top of them.
I get the point of a smaller wardrobe. Buy fewer but higher quality and perhaps more expensive pieces that will last and even make you look better, making it easier to choose your outfit in the morning and makes you spend less time worrying about how you look. I get the point of getting rid of things you just keep because you relate them to certain memories. I will keep my diaries and my photos, but that’s about all I need.
But I do not have any desires to get rid of my books. I could leave them with my relatives or someone I know instead. I could travel the world and go seek my safety with people instead of possessions, but whenever I move somewhere, whenever I settle down long enough buy a bed overlooking whatever cityscape or view of the landscape I have, then I will want them there to stack my teacups on.
eirians 