War and Peace

In an effort to broaden my horizons and get better acquainted with the classics I have started to read War and Peace by Tolstoy. The general reply I get to this is "You're ambitious." Personally, I find this reaction strange. I enjoy reading immensely and when I come to the end of a book I am rather depressed it is over. With that in mind, I can't understand why people would not welcome the opportunity to read a book reported to be among the greatest books of all time and to have that book be quite lengthy. I am about 100 pages into the roughly 1900-2000 page work. I am impressed by the uniqueness of the characters and the details given for even minor characters that somehow only adds to the book and does not distract (ala Dickens). It also surprises me how many people simply don't read period. A few months ago I bought the biography of Neal A. Maxwell and enjoyed reading about and learning from his life. This turned out to be rather "serendipitous" since my father is going through much of the same experience with leukemia. When I visited him on Sunday he said he couldn't hardly keep track of the book since he had been sharing it with some of the other patients. It truly is a shame that as a society we have become much more involved in the, shall we say, less thought-intensive forms of media.

Life takes a sharp right turn

I found out last Tuesday that my father has leukimia, which is a cancer of the bone marrow. I am still having a hard time adjusting to the whole situation but I feel worlds better today. It seems in life that whenever you get comfortable with a situation it changes. This is of course a blessing in that it provides us a myriad of opportunities to learn and grow but the price for personal growth seems the same as muscle growth, pain. It would seem that they caught the disease in an early state and all seems to going well at this point. Once again my father has taught me by his example. He has yet to utter a negative comment about the whole situation as far as any of us can tell. Rather than turn to a weakening self-pity he has continued as the workhorse he has always been. His work is a little different now but he has adapted well to talking to other patients, learning what he can do for his condition through books and the internet, and walking as much as possible. George Henry Lewes said, "The only cure for grief is action." I have found this to be true in many instances and this is no exception. Is the situation still hard? Yes, but in it we have all seen that attitude is the hinge upon which the door of learning opens or closes.

Yet more proof that nature is nothing if not adaptive

The futility of social activity...yes a rant

Admittedly, I am not a particularly social person by nature. This is something I have been working on with arguably mixed results. Part of the problem as I see it, is that social activities don't really introduce you to other people as a general rule. I mean really think about the last time you went to something like a dance where there were loads and loads of people to meet. Did you tell your friends, "Catch you later, I need to talk to strangers"? Somehow I doubt it. The only time we actually meet a new person at such a gathering is through a mutual friend and really what are the chances of meeting them again? Okay, so admittedly people have been known to strike up conversations with a total stranger. However, I've experimented with this a little and found people find this unnerving. One day I was walking home and started talking to a girl who was walking the same way. She was less than enthusiastic and seemed to be considering breaking into a dead run. Now there are always exceptions to such things I'm sure but it somehow doesn't really seem worth it, somewhat akin to the lottery ticket. I think my luck with social situations is about to change though. I got a fortune cookie a week ago that says "You will be advanced socially, without any special effort on your part." Without any special effort....I've wondered if that means it will just take effort but not special effort. Either way it is about my only shot at social progress.

Awakenings

A while back I had an epiphany. It occurred to me that no matter how bland or uninteresting a person may appear to be they can be fascinating. I'll explain because I know that doesn't make sense right off. As I've observed people interacting with each other I've found that unless someone is talking to someone they care about or trust there is a tendency for people to be, for lack of a better word, shallow. I don't mean shallow in the materialistic or petty sense but in the sense of how deep the interaction is. Think of it this way, if a teacher asks you what your greatest aspiration is you may respond that you want to be a writer. Now, take that same question and think about if you really thought about what you want most out of life, out of yourself. When people greet each other with "How's it going?" the expected response is good or fine. I've caught myself responding fine by reflex when my day has been awful. So I guess what I am trying to say is that there are times in life where we see in others or in ourselves their "true self" or what they have the potential to be all the time. I've been trying to reach this myself by being honest and open with others and especially myself. To quote the bard "This above all; to thine own self be true."